THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO.  ILLINOIS 


THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 

THE  CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON 

THE  MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 

TOKTO,  OSAKA,  KTOTO,  FUKUOKA,  BENDAI 

THE  MISSION  BOOK  COMPANY 

SHANGHAI 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING 

IN  THE  MIDDLE 

COLONIES 


By 


CHARLES  HARTSHORN  MAXSON 

Aiihtant  Professor  of  Political  Science  in  the 
University  of  Pennsyl-vania 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


Copyright  igzo  By 
The  University  of  Chicago 


All  Rights  Reserved 


i;  /Published 'March  ig2« 


Composed  uid  Printed  By 

The  UniTersity  ol  Chicago  P'eM 

ChiOKO.  Illinois,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

Centennial  celebrations  of  what  Jonathan  Edwards  called  the 
"Revival  of  Religion  in  New  England  in  1740,"  suggested  to  Joseph 
Tracy  the  preparation  of  a  history  of  that  revival.  His  design  was 
admirably  executed.  Subordinate  attention  was  given  by  him  to  the 
progress  of  the  revival  in  other  sections  of  the  country  and  in  Great 
Britain,  but  in  the  main  his  Great  Awakening  is  an  exhaustive  history 
of  the  revival  proper  in  New  England.  It  gives  extended  quotations 
from  the  personal  narratives  of  many  promoters  of  the  revival  which 
were  written  in  1 743  and  1 744  for  Prince's  Christian  History. 

Approaching  my  task  almost  three-fourths  of  a  century  after  Tracy, 
I  find  myself  more  in  sympathy  than  was  common  in  Tracy's  day  with 
the  catholicity  of  Whitefield  and  with  the  democratic  tendencies  of  the 
revival  which  were  so  largely  responsible  for  the  destruction  of  the 
ecclesiastical  system  of  New  England.  Tracy  wrote  with  the  purpose  of 
encouraging  a  similar  quickening  in  his  own  time  but  wished  to  avoid 
resort  to  measures  which  he  imagined  to  be  harmful.  I  find  my  purpose 
not  in  the  advocacy  of  a  program  but  in  the  attempt  to  demonstrate 
that  the  religious  energies  liberated  by  the  Great  Awakening  were  trans- 
formed into  forces,  social,  humanitarian,  educational,  and  political,  which 
have  been  of  almost  incalculable  importance  in  the  making  of  the 
American  people. 

This  study,  much  briefer  than  Tracy's,  will  make  only  such  reference 
to  the  revival  in  New  England  as  is  demanded  for  understanding  the 
movement  in  the  Middle  Colonies.  The  statement  of  the  relation  of  the 
revival  in  the  Middle  Colonies  to  its  extension  southward  will  not  be  so 
abbreviated,  because  that  relation  was  very  close,  and  because  there  is 
no  account  of  the  revival  in  the  South  like  that  of  Tracy  for  New  England. 

I  made  a  journey  from  Boston,  Massachusetts,  to  Charleston,  South 
Carolina,  visiting  most  of  the  libraries  which  possess  important  collections 
of  colonial  newspapers.  I  gathered  a  mass  of  material  on  the  moral 
and  religious  conditions  of  the  colonies  and  the  progress  of  the  Great 
Awakening.  Though  everywhere  courteously  received,  I  feel  myself 
xmder  special  obligation  to  the  gentlemen  in  charge  of  the  splendid  col- 
lections of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society.  In  the  notes  a  number 
of  references  to  the  newspapers,  a  neglected  source  material,  will  be 
found. 


740 


vi  PREFACE 

I  have  also  visited  libraries  at  New  York,  New  Brunswick,  Princeton, 
Trenton,  and  Philadelphia.  Special  mention  must  be  made  of  some 
among  the  many  visited.  At  the  library  of  Union  Theological  Seminary 
I  was  given  kindly  assistance  and  access  to  rare  books  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  At  the  Sage  Library,  New  Brunswick,  I  found  useful  material 
on  the  relation  of  the  Dutch  church  to  the  revival.  At  the  Princeton 
Theological  Library  I  was  given  access  to  the  incomparable  Sprague 
Collection.  At  Trenton  the  permanent  clerk  of  the  presbytery  of  New 
Brunswick,  Rev.  George  H.  Ingram,  permitted  me  to  inspect  the  manu- 
script records  of  that  body  and  kindly  presented  me  with  a  typewritten 
copy  of  the  first  record  book.  He  was  then  writing  a  history  of  the  pres- 
bytery of  New  Brunswick  for  the  Presbyterian  Historical  Review.  At 
Philadelphia  my  indebtedness  among  a  number  of  libraries  is  greatest 
to  that  of  the  Presbyterian  Historical  Society.  Here  the  extensive  col- 
lection of  Tennent  papers,  mostly  manuscript  sermons  of  Gilbert 
Tennent,  was  put  at  my  disposal,  as  were  also  the  records  of  the  Second 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Philadelphia  and  many  old  books  and  pam- 
phlets not  found  elsewhere. 

Source  materials  other  than  those  mentioned  in  the  statement  of  my 
obligations  are  the  journals  of  Whitefield  and  Brainerd,  Prince's  Chris- 
tian History,  the  Records  of  the  Presybterian  Church,  and  many  excerpts 
from  eighteenth-century  documents  which  are  incorporated  in  the  his- 
tories of  churches,  presbyteries,  and  denominations  and  in  the  biog- 
raphies of  men  who  were  concerned  in  the  movement.  The  Ecclesiastical 
Records  of  the  State  of  New  York  are  a  mine  of  information  upon  the 
progress  of  revivalism  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey  and  to  some  extent 
in  Pennsylvania. 

The  story  of  Pietism  in  Pennsylvania  is  based  principally  upon  the 
extensive  researches  of  Sachse  and  serves  as  an  introduction  to  the  more 
important  phases  of  the  revival,  the  story  of  which  follows.  Chapters 
ii  to  viii  and  the  greater  part  of  chapter  ix  are  based  on  original  material. 
So  far  as  chapter  ix  deals  with  denominations  other  than  the  Presbyterian 
and  Dutch  Reformed  it  is  based  for  the  most  part  on  denominational 
histories,  secondary  sources,  though  Edwards'  Material  may  very 
properly  be  regarded  as  original.  This  part  of  chapter  ix  simply  fills 
out  the  story  and  shows  the  remarkable  parallelism  in  the  results  of  the 
Great  Awakening  in  the  various  denominations.  The  final  chapter 
sums  up  a  number  of  the  distinguishing  marks  of  the  evangeUcal  revival. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Introduction,  AND  Pietism  IN  Pennsylvania      ......  i 

II.  Frelinghuysen,  and  the  Beginning  of  the  Revival  among 

THE  Dutch  Reformed ii 

III.  The  Tennents,  and  the  Beginning  of  the  Revival  among 
the  Presbyterians 21 

IV.  George  Whitefield,  and  His  Alliance  with  the  New  Bruns- 
wick Presbyterians 40 

V.  The  Year  1740,  THE  Great  Awakening  AT  High  Tide     ...  54 

VI.  The  Schism  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  Year  1741   .  69 

VII.  Period  of  Expansion  and  Organization 80 

VIII.  Whitefield  the  Pacificator 104 

IX.  Triumphant  Evangelism  IN  AN  Age  of  Unbelief      .     .     .     .  112 

X.  Conclusion 139 

Bibliography    . 152 


CHAPTER  I 
INTRODUCTION,  AND  PIETISM  IN  PENNSYLVANIA 

In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  a  tidal  wave  of  religious 
fervor  and  reforming  zeal  swept  over  the  British  colonies  in  America. 
When  this  wave  of  emotionalism  had  passed,  when  the  extraordinary 
in  Christian  experience  and  activity  had  given  place  to  the  ordinary,  the 
friends  of  the  revival,  and  after  them  their  sons  and  sons'  sons,  called  it 
the  Great  Awakening. 

The  term  "Great  Awakening,"  however,  is  not  employed  in  this 
study  in  a  restricted  sense  as  applying  only  to  the  religious  excitement  of 
1740,  or  even  to  the  series  of  widely  extended  and  closely  related  revivals 
among  which  that  of  1 740  was  the  most  remarkable.  The  name  is  used 
as  an  appropriate  designation  of  the  whole  evangelical  quickening  in  the 
colonies.  This  change  in  the  attitude  of  the  people  toward  religion,  by 
which  after  a  period  of  decay  it  became  a  power  in  the  lives  of  thousands, 
had  numerous  and  widely  separated  beginnings  very  early  in  the  century. 
Among  these  beginnings  the  most  important  were  the  revival  of  Pietism 
among  the  Germans  of  Pennsylvania,  the  rise  of  a  radical  evangelism 
among  the  Dutch  of  New  Jersey,  a  similar  revival  among  the  English- 
speaking  Presbyterians  of  the  Middle  Colonies,  and,  following  these,  the 
remarkable  outburst  of  old-time  Puritan  feeling  among  the  Congrega- 
tionalists  of  New  England.  Though  this  intercolonial  and  interdenomi- 
national quickening  rose  at  times  to  astonishing  heights  of  excitement, 
these  seasons  were  but  passing  manifestations  of  an  abiding  movement. 
It  was  still  powerful  in  parts  of  the  country  at  the  breaking  out  of  the 
Revolutionary  War. 

Though  the  Great  Awakening,  conceived  of  as  a  long-sustained  move- 
ment, was  professedly  unsectarian,  and  its  promoters  were  not  concerned 
with  the  ecclesiastical  affiliations  of  the  religiously  awakened,  yet  the 
denominations  which  heartily  accepted  its  principles  became  strong 
and  popular.  The  degree  of  their  acceptance  of  these  evangelistic  ideals 
was  the  measure  of  their  ultimate  numerical  strength.  This  building 
up  of  large  bodies  of  aggressive  religionists  which  possessed  no  special 
privileges  and  opposed  the  union  of  church  and  state  contributed  greatly 
to  a  social  and  political  revolution.     However  vivid  to  the  imaginations 


2        THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

of  New  Lights  and  New  Sides^  were  heaven  and  hell,  they  excelled  their 
more  conservative  brethren  in  determined  pursuit  of  practical  aims. 
Their  awakened  sympathy  established  orphanages  and  other  institutions 
for  social  betterment.  They  gave  new  life  to  missions.  In  that  time 
there  were  no  other  founders  of  schools  like  them.  When  a  conservative 
majority  in  a  colony  held  the  evangelical  minority  in  unwilling  restraint, 
relief  was  found  in  emigration,  and  whole  churches  of  the  discontented 
moved  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  the  persecuting  government.  Thus 
the  Great  Awakening  was  not  wave  on  wave  of  excitement  which,  having 
passed,  left  no  trace  upon  the  placid  waters.  sJt  was  a  powerful  ferment 
which  was  destined  to  revolutionize  colonial  society.  As  an  intercolonial 
movement  it  was  the  beginning  of  a  unifying  process  which  was  carried 
still  farther  by  common  effort  in  the  French  and  Indian  War  and  to 
political  union  by  the  Revolutionary  War. } 

"Not  only  was  the  Great  Awakening  an  intercolonial  movement ;  it 
was  part  of  a  larger  awakening  within  the  whole  British  Empire  which 
may  very  properly  be  called  the  Methodist  Revival.  Waves  of  influence 
crossed  the  Atlantic  in  both  directions.  The  remarkablfe  revival  which 
began  in  1 734  at  Northampton  under  the  preaching  of  Jonathan  Edwards, 
already  mentioned  as  one  of  the  beginnings  of  the  Great  Awakening, 
was  reported  in  Great  Britain,  first  by  the  letters  of  American  correspond- 
ents, and  afterward  by  the  publication  in  1737  of  Edwards'  Narrative  of 
Surprising  Conversions.^  Dissenters  and  conformists  were  stirred  by  its 
reading,^  and  it  was  influential  in  the  spread  of  the  revival  spirit  in  the 
homelands."    Pious  colonists  in  turn  became  expectant  and  hopeful 

'  The  former  term  was  employed  in  New  England  and  was  frequently  applied  to 
the  radical  supporters  of  the  revival;  the  latter  term  was  employed  in  the  Middle 
Colonies,  but  there  it  was  applied  to  the  evangelical  party  in  the  Presbyterian  Church. 

*  Rev.  W.  Williams,  of  Hatfield,  wrote  a  letter  to  Dr.  Colman,  of  Boston,  on  the 
"Remarkable  Success  of  the  Gospel"  in  Hampshire  county,  dated  April  28,  1735, 
which  was  published  in  the  New  England  Weekly  Journal,  May  12,  1735.  Colman 
forwarded  this  and  other  accounts  to  his  correspondents,  Drs.  Watts  and  Guyse,  of 
London.  They  asked  for  a  fuller  statement,  which  request  Edwards  received  in  a 
letter  written  by  Colman  to  Williams.  The  narrative  was  dated  November  6,  1 736, 
and  was  pubUshed  in  London  in  1737.  The  Boston  Gazette,  December  20,  1736, 
advertises  that  "An  Account  of  the  late  wonderful  Work  of  God  by  Rev.  Jonathan, 
Edwards  is  JUST  PUBLISHED."  This  is  the  narrative  of  November  6,  1736, 
abridged  by  Dr.  Colman.  The  same  paper,  December  11,  1738,  advertised  Edwards' 
Surprising  Work  of  God.  This  was  the  unabridged  narrative  of  1 736.  The  statement 
in  Dwight's  Edwards,  Vol.  I  of  Edwards'  Works,  pp.  137-40,  is  not  accurate. 

3  Hoskins,  "German  Influence,"  Princeton  Theological  Review,  1907- 
^Tyerman's  Wesley,  I,  220;   Macpherson,  A  History  of  the  Church  in  Scotland, 
p.  324. 


INTRODUCTION,  AND  PIETISM  IN  PENNSYLVANIA  3 

when  the  beginnings  of  a  rehgious  quickening  in  England  were  reported 
to  them.  Readers  of  the  colonial  newspapers'  in  January,  1738,  found 
astonishing  accounts  of  the  preaching  in  the  preceding  October  of  a 
young  deacon  of  the  Church  of  England,  Whitefield  by  name,  a  member 
of  John  Wesley's  student  club,  derisively  called  the  Methodists.  Later 
the  colonial  papers^  copied  from  their  London  exchanges  almost  incredible 
stories  of  the  throngs  which  crowded  around  the  young  orator,  now  become 
a  field  preacher.  When,  therefore,  he  arrived  at  Lewes,  Delaware,  on 
October  30,  1739,  interest  in  the  great  evangelist  was  already  raised  to 
the  highest  pitch.  From  that  day  George  Whitefield,  the  English  Metho- 
dist, was  the  chief  figure  in  the  Great  Awakening  in  the  American  colo- 
nies. For  nearly  a  decade  there  was  constant  interchange  of  reports  by 
both  friends  and  enemies  of  the  revival.  English  and  Scotch  tracts  and 
sermons  were  republished  by  enterprising  printers  from  Charleston  to 
Boston,  and  colonial  publications  reappeared  in  Glasgow  and  London. 

But  the  Great  Awakening  was  not  only  part  of  the  larger  Methodist 
Revival,  a  movement  within  the  British  Empire;  it  was  part  of  an  inter- 
national evangelical  revival  which  among  the  Protestants  of  Germany 
was  known  as  the  pietistic  movement.^  In  this  world  movement 
emphasis  was  not  put  upon  distinctive  names,  formal  creeds,  the  claims 
of  this  or  that  system  of  church  polity,  or  upon  the  efficacy  of  merely 
external  rites.  Its  fundamental  ideas  were  vital  piety,  the  mystic  union 
of  the  believer  with  God,  the  enthronement  of  emotion  upon  its  rightful 
seat,  and  a  thoroughgoing  reformation  of  morals. 

Spener,  of  Frankfort,  was  the  founder  of  Pietism.*  Beginning  in 
1670  he  established  collegia  pietatis,  or  private  devotional  societies, 

'  American  Weekly  Mercury,  January  24,  1738,  and  other  papers. 

^  Boston  Gazette,  June  25,  1739,  and  many  other  papers. 

3  Christian  History  for  1 744,  pp.  262-84.  This  weekly  paper,  edited  by  T.  Prince, 
Jr.,  was  the  first  religious  periodical  published  in  the  colonies.  Similar  weekly  histories 
of  religion  had  recently  been  established  in  London  by  Whitefield  and  in  Glasgow  by 
McLaurin.  These  papers  illustrate  the  international  character  of  the  revival,  in  the 
promotion  of  which  they  were  established.  The  Christian  History  prints  an  account 
of  the  revival  in  Germany,  which  account  was  the  preface  to  the  English  edition  of 
1705  of  Francke's  Pielatas  Hallensis.  Cotton  Mather  had  previously  corresponded 
with  Francke  and  contributed  to  his  work.  They  exchanged  books.  Knowledge  of  the 
revival  in  Germany  must  have  awakened  the  desire  for  revival  in  New  England  and 
may  have  contributed  to  the  revival  of  1734.     On  Mather  see  Hoskins,  pp.  210,  225. 

I  The  term  "Pietism"  is  employed  here  in  the  sense  of  Riggenbach  as  a  reaction  of 
practical  faith  from  barren  orthodoxy,  not  as  a  vague  term  including  various  specula- 
tive and  mystical  phenomena.  Yet  there  is  an  undoubted  relation  between  the 
Labadists,  Quakers,  Quietists,  and  Pietists.  Kaufmann,  "  Latitudinarianism  and 
Pietism,"  in  Cambridge  Modern  History,  V,  753  ff. 


4        THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

within  the  churches,  through  which  he  hoped  to  leaven  the  whole  lump. 
In  these  societies  the  Bible  was  enthusiastically  studied,  and  the  spiritual 
priesthood  of  laymen  was  exercised.  Spener  advocated  gentleness  in 
the  intercourse  of  Lutherans  and  the  Reformed  and  was  called  to  Berlin 
by  the  king  of  Prussia  as  a  pacificator.  Under  his  influence  the  new 
University  of  Halle  was  manned  with  professors  of  pietistic  sentiment. 
Halle  accordingly  became  the  center  of  evangelism  in  Germany.  Pres- 
ently the  Lutheran  communion  was  divided  into  two  parties.  The 
minority  held  to  Pietism,  though  repudiating  every  charge  of  separation 
and  heresy.  The  majority  charged  that  the  establishment  of  a  church 
within  the  church  inevitably  paved  the  way  to  separation,  and  that 
the  boasted  Catholicism  of  the  Pietists  but  opened  the  door  to  heresy, 
enthusiasm,  and  chiliastic  reveries.^ 

Spener  died  in  1705,  but  already  Francke  had  succeeded  him  as  a 
vigorous  leader  of  the  movement.  It  was  Francke  who  established  the 
famous  orphan  house  at  Halle  with  its  affiliated  schools  and  various 
institutions  for  the  propagation  of  this  warm  type  of  religion.  Under 
his  direction  Pietism  continued  to  exercise  a  wholesome  influence  upon  the 
Lutheran  Church,  for  it  was  a  protest  against  dogmatism  and  formalism. 
Yet  it  was  narrow  in  its  tendency  to  define  conversion  in  the  terms  of  a 
single  type.    This  narrowness  was  transmitted  to  the  Methodist  Revival. 

The  course  of  Pietism  in  the  Lutheran  Church  of  Germany  may  be 
dismissed  with  this  brief  characterization,  but  a  word  is  demanded 
concerning  the  influence  of  the  revival  upon  the  various  religious  bodies 
the  members  of  which  swarmed  to  the  New  World  and  here  participated 
in  the  Great  Awakening.  The  Reformed  as  well  as  the  Lutherans  of 
the  Palatinate,  from  which  principality  the  main  emigration  was  made 
from  Germany  to  Pennsylvania,  were  under  strong  pietistic  influences. 
But  none  responded  more  quickly  to  the  new  touch  of  life  than  the  so- 
called  "Sectarian"  bodies.  The  pietistic  propaganda  was  a  boon  to 
them,  for  they  too  stood  for  experimental  rehgion  and  the  universal 
priesthood  of  believers.  In  addition  to  these  principles,  held  in  common 
with  the  revivalists  of  the  established  churches,  they  more  or  less  gener- 
ally held  such  doctrines  as  the  separation  of  church  and  state,  non- 
resistance,  prohibition  of  oaths,  plainness  of  dress,  the  love  feast,  the 
kiss  of  charity,  and  foot-washing.^ 

Of  these  Sectarians,  aroused  by  the  revival  to  activity,  the  most 
numerous  connection  was  that  of  the  Mennonites,  the  representatives 

'  Mirbt,  "Pietism,"  in  New  Schaff-Hersog  Rel.  Enc,  Vol.  IX. 

*  Kuhns,  The  German  and  Swiss  Settlements  of  Colonial  Pennsylvania,  p.  173. 


INTRODUCTION,  AND  PIETISM  IN  PENNSYLVANIA  5 

of  the  Anabaptists  of  the  Reformation.  The  Schwenkfelders  were 
another  survival  of  the  same  period.  More  important  than  the  Schwenk- 
felders, but  like  them  insignificant  in  numbers,  were  the  Dunkers,  or 
German  Baptist  Brethren.'  Though  the  spirit  of  Pietism  was  opposed 
to  the  organization  of  new  sects,  this  brotherhood  was  none  the  less  the 
fruit  of  the  revival.  The  Moravians  illustrated  the  opposite  and  pre- 
vailing tendency  of  the  revival,  the  tendency  to  union  and  affiliation 
with  all  denominations.  The  Unitas  Fratrum,  the  ancient  Moravian 
Church,  uprooted  from  its  ancestral  home,  was  reorganized  by  Count 
Zinzendorf  in  Germany  and  became  beyond  any  other  sect  the  very 
embodiment  of  Pietism.  Moravianism  was  a  wonderful  system  with  its 
classes  and  discipline,  with  its  hierarchy  and  co-operative  business  enter- 
prises, with  its  orphanages  and  schools,  with  its  vent  for  emotion  and 
recreation  in  strangely  appealing  music,  and  above  all  with  its  truly 
heroic  prosecution  of  foreign  missions.^ 

Again  the  general  international  character  of  the  whole  religious  move- 
ment can  be  seen  from  the  relation  between  the  German  reformers  and 
the  men  of  England  whom  the  new  spirit  was  beginning  to  move. 
John  Wesley  was  converted  through  the  instrumentality  of  Peter  Boehler, 
the  Moravian.  The  Methodist  societies  in  the  Church  of  England 
adopted  many  features  of  Moravianism.  Indeed  the  members  of  that 
brotherhood  were  pre-eminently  the  mediators  of  German  Pietism  to  the 
revivahsts  of  England.  Moreover,  George  Whitefield,  the  chief  apostle 
of  the  Great  Awakening,  was  influenced  profoundly  by  Pietism.  In 
the  story  of  his  youth  Whitefield  tells  of  his  first  meeting  with  Charles 
Wesley.^  Whitefield  was  then  a  young  Pembroke  College  student,  shy 
but  thirsting  for  spiritual  friendship.  Wesley  understood  his  need  and 
put  into  his  hands  Francke's  treatise,  the  Fear  of  Man.  This  was  White- 
field's  introduction  to  the  German  Pietist  whose  orphan  house  at  Halle 
was  the  model  of  his  own  in  Georgia,  and  to  whose  example  he  frequently 
appealed.  Whitefield 's  reading  was  not  in  systems  of  doctrine^  but 
in  devotional  books,  pietistical  and  mystical,  sometimes  passionate  in 
their  portrayal  of  the  struggles  of  the  tempted.  Ardent  and  imaginative 
as  he  was  by  nature,  he  experienced  the  very  struggles  of  which  he  read, 
even  suffering  the  torments  of  the  damned.  His  surrender  to  these 
suggestions  in  such  extreme  fashion  he  afterward  regarded  as  yielding  to 

'  Brumbaugh,  A  History  of  the  German  Baptist  Brethren,  p.  12. 

'Pennsylvania  Gazette,  February  24,  1743. 

J  Whitefield,  Brief  Account,  pp.  19,  20. 

^Whitefield,  A  Letter  .  ...  in  Answer  to  ...  .  Querists,  p.  61. 


6        THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  TEE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

the  temptations  of  Satan.  But  these  struggles  were  very  real  to  him 
and  threw  him  into  serious  illness.  At  last  his  cry  for  relief  was  heard. 
Then  his  exaltation  of  spirit  even  exceeded  the  measure  of  his  former 
distress.  He  was  the  first  of  the  band  of  Methodists  to  pass  through 
what  the  Moravians  called  "holy  mourning"  to  its  happy  issue  in 
assurance.^ 

The  influence  of  Pietism  upon  Whitefield  did  not  end  with  his  con- 
version. There  are  frequent  references  in  his  journals  to  pietistic  litera- 
ture.* The  native  tendency  of  his  mind  to  eschew  plodding  logical 
processes  and  to  leap  at  one  bound  to  conclusions  was  encouraged  by 
the  mystical  books  which  he  read  and  by  his  intercourse  with  the  Mora- 
vians. Deep  impressions  and  sudden  impulses  were  followed  as  inspira- 
tions of  the  divine  Spirit,  but  if  they  proved  harmful  and  erroneous  they 
were  afterward  attributed  to  Satan.  It  was  this  that  Jonathan  Edwards 
criticized  in  friendly  conversation  with  Whitefield,  and  it  was  this  that 
Charles  Chauncy  openly  denounced  as  Quakerish  and  Jesuitical  super- 
stition.3  But  impulses  and  impressions  were  incidental;  from  Pietism 
the  evangelist  had  learned  that  Christianity  is  a  life,  not  a  creed;  the 
glow  and  warmth  of  that  life  he  had  come  to  feel  himself. 

But  Pietism  had  another  connection  with  the  religious  movement 
which  is  to  be  traced  in  these  chapters,  more  direct,  if  less  potent,  than 
that  indicated  by  its  effects  upon  the  Wesleys,  Whitefield,  and  other 
Methodist  leaders,  for  Pietists  came  in  great  numbers  to  the  Middle 
Colonies,  and  their  influence  ultimately  determined  the  dominant  char- 
acter of  the  colonial  German  population.  In  1683,  two  years  after 
William  Penn  obtained  his  charter,  the  first  body  of  German  emigrants 
arrived  in  Philadelphia  and  soon  afterward  founded  German  town.  They 
were  attracted  by  the  proposals  of  Penn's  Holy  Experiment.  The  com- 
pany was  composed  of  Mennonites  and  German  Quake rs.^ 

The  Mennonites  were  followed  in  1694  by  a  strange  body  of  mystics, 
forty  in  number,  including  university  men  of  varied  learning.  First  of 
all  these  mystics  were  Pietists,  but  they  were  also  chiliasts.s    It  is  remark- 

'  Whitefield,  Brief  Account,  pp.  31,  40.  Whitefield  was  converted  in  1735  and 
Wesley  in  1738;  that  is,  in  those  years  they  passed  through  the  emotional  experiences 
which  they  accounted  their  conversions. 

"Whitefield's  Journals  for  January  6,  9,  and  March  26,  1738;  September  15, 
1739,  etc. 

3  Hoskins,  op.  cit.,  p.  223;  Dwight,  op.  cit.,  p.  147;  Chauncy,  Seasonable  Thoughts, 
P-  173- 

*  Sachse,  German  Pietists,  p.  4.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  37,  38,  80,  129,  130. 


INTRODUCTION,  AND  PIETISM  IN  PENNSYLVANIA  7 

able  that  every  revival  of  religion  revives  too  the  belief  of  the  early  Chris- 
tians in  the  speedy  return  of  the  Lord.  This  body  was  sometimes  called 
the  Order  of  the  Woman  in  the  Wilderness,  for  were  its  members  not 
carried  over  the  sea  by  the  ''wings  of  the  great  eagle,"  and  did  they  not 
flee  into  the  wilderness,  where  God,  as  they  imagined,  had  prepared  a 
place  for  them  ?'  Here  they  would  wait  for  the  harbinger  of  the  millen- 
nium soon  to  dawn  upon  the  world,  according  to  the  calculations  of  their 
astronomers  and  astrologists.  They  were  orthodox  Lutherans,  but 
they  held  in  addition  to  the  usual  articles  of  faith  these  esoteric  doctrines. 
Science  and  pseudo-science  were  strangely  commingled,  for  they  prac- 
ticed medicine  and  manufactured  amulets,  studied  botany  and  employed 
the  divining  rod  to  determine  the  location  of  springs  of  water.^ 

In  contrast  with  the  coming  of  this  little  band  of  enthusiasts  there 
was  in  1 709  the  arrival  of  a  horde  of  destitute  Palatines.  Most  of  them 
were  brought  to  the  province  of  New  York  by  the  English  government. 
A  few  of  those  who  first  settled  in  New  York  made  their  way  down  the 
Susquehanna  River  and  finally  reached  the  more  hospitable  province  of 
Pennsylvania.  In  171 7  the  immigration  of  Palatines  direct  to  Pennsyl- 
vania was  suddenly  swelled  by  the  coming  of  six  or  seven  thousand. 
They  were  Reformed  and  Lutherans  in  approximately  equal  numbers, 
many  of  both  communions  holding  pietistic  views.  They  were  driven 
from  the  fatherland  by  religious  persecution  and  economic  distress.^ 

Not  all  these  Germans  who  year  by  year  sought  refuge  in  the  New 
World  were  members  of  the  two  leading  churches.  Little  companies 
of  Sectarians  arrived  from  time  to  time.  In  17 19  the  Dunkers  came. 
There  were  only  twenty  families,  and  these  scattered  to  obtain  suitable 
lands.  Ten  years  later  their  founder,  Alexander  Mack,  brought  a  large 
company  to  Germantown.  The  Dunkers  were  followed  by  the  Schwenk- 
felders  in  1 734,  and  that  year  a  few  Moravian  evangelists  arrived.  Thus 
the  several  denominations  which  had  been  stirred  by  the  new  evangel 
in  the  fatherland,  and  which  were  to  be  active  in  pious  endeavor  in  the 
New  World,  were  now  planted  in  Pennsylvania,  and  some  of  them 
were  also  represented  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey.'' 

America  was  at  first  a  disappointing  refuge  to  these  German  immi- 
grants.   The  hard  conditions  on  the  frontier,  the  exhausting  labor  of 

'  Rev.  12:1-6,  13-17;    20:4.  ^  Sachse,  o/».  «7.,  pp.  62,  112, 120. 

3  Ecclesiastical  Records  of  the  State  of  New  York,  p.  1 7 1 2. 

*  Brumbaugh,  op.  cit.,  p.  49.  It  is  estimated  that  up  to  1739  there  had  been 
a  German  emigration  to  Pennsylvania  of  thirty  to  thirty-five  thousand.  Kuhns, 
op.  cit.,  pp.  55,  57. 


8        THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

clearing  the  forests,  the  isolation  of  life,  the  breaking  of  former  ties,  the 
lack  of  encouragement  from  coreligionists — all  these  things  had  a 
benumbing  effect  upon  the  German  immigrants,  much  to  the  detriment 
of  their  religious  and  intellectual  well-being.  Some,  who  had  suffered 
the  spoiling  of  their  goods  for  sake  of  conscience  in  the  Old  World,  seemed 
to  lose  their  religion  in  the  New  World.  They  saw  their  children  growing 
up  in  ignorance.  They  were  perplexed  by  the  reUgious  confusion,  for 
there  were  many  sects  among  the  Germans  besides  those  mentioned, 
and  some  of  them  held  views  dangerous  to  society.  The  members  of 
churches  maintained  by  the  state  in  the  fatherland  were  unaccustomed 
to  voluntary  support  of  the  gospel.  Even  the  Sectarians  were  baffled 
for  the  time  being.  Such  were  the  conditions  in  the  early  years  when 
the  material  foundation  was  being  laid.^ 

The  prospect  was  discouraging,  but  the  event  proved  that  these 
plodding  Germans  had  chosen  the  best  lands  and  thus  had  the  basis  for 
material  prosperity,  while  the  leaven  of  Pietism  in  time  gave  character 
to  the  whole  society.  Among  them  mystical  and  pietistic  leaders  worked 
efifectively.  The  forty  mystics  mentioned  as  coming  to  Pennsylvania 
in  1694  sought  to  meet  the  religious  needs  of  the  German  colonists. 
Though  these  mystics  had  buried  themselves  in  the  western  wilderness, 
their  tabernacle  was  but  three  miles  from  Germantown.  Children  were 
received  to  be  educated  by  them,  and  all  who  studied  at  the  tabernacle 
were  deeply  imbued  with  the  spirit  of  Pietism.  This  was  the  first 
charitable  institution  in  Pennsylvania.  Kelpius,  the  leader  of  the  band, 
professing  love  for  all  denominations,  sought  to  unite  the  Germans  in 
one  church.  He  was  held  in  great  veneration,  but  he  died  early,  and 
even  before  his  death  the  symbolical  number  of  forty  was  broken  by 
withdrawals.^ 

The  associates  of  Kelpius  were  highly  individualistic  in  their  ideas  and 
practices.  Koster  observed  the  Seventh-day  as  a  day  of  sacred  rest  and 
immersed  his  converts  from  Quakerism  when  they  insisted  on  following 
scriptural  precedent.  Others  he  led  back  to  the  Church  of  England. 
Thus  the  Baptists  and  Episcopahans  were  indebted  to  this  Lutheran 
minister  whose  chief  work  was  among  the  German  people.''  The  Falkner 
brothers,  Daniel  and  Justus,  also  members  of  the  order,  gave  years  of 
missionary  service  to  their  fellow  Lutherans.     They  were  itinerant 

*  Sachse,  German  Sectarians,  pp.  50-52.  '  Kuhns,  op.  cit.,  p.  86. 

3  Sachse,  The  German  Pietists,  pp.  274,  277,  286;  Morgan  Edwards,  Material, 
p.  45 ;  Vedder,  A  History  of  the  Baptists  in  the  Middle  States,  p.  64;  McConnell, 
History  of  the  American  Episcopal  Church,  pp.  80,  81. 


INTRODUCTION,  AND  PIETISM  IN  PENNSYLVANIA  g 

pastors  for  a  great  part  of  New  York  and  New  Jersey.  Others  of  the 
band  served  as  physicians  and  lay  workers.  At  last  the  tabernacle  was 
deserted.  Only  a  solitary  recluse,  here  and  there,  was  left  of  the  com- 
pany that  were  called  "Pietists"  in  distinction  from  all  others.  White- 
field  tells  of  an  interview  with  the  hermit  Matthai,  the  successor  of 
Kelpius.  Some  members  of  the  order  lived  even  until  the  arrival  of 
Muhlenberg,  himself  a  Pietist  from  Halle,  who  was  sent  by  Francke's 
orphanage  as  a  missionary  to  America.' 

Notwithstanding  the  efforts  of  these  missionaries  of  pietistic  senti- 
ment and  of  others  of  conservative  opinion  violently  opposed  to  Pietism, 
the  religious  destitution  was  great  among  the  Lutherans  and  still  greater 
among  the  Reformed.  There  was  difficulty  in  obtaining  regularly 
ordained  and  university-trained  ministers,  but  the  Sectarians,  requir- 
ing only  that  education  which  comes  from  the  exercise  of  gifts,  often 
developed  religious  leaders  of  remarkable  power.  Furthermore,  they 
were  self-supporting.  For  this  reason  the  Mennonites,  and  notably  the 
Dunkers,  were  far  more  active  and  successful  than  the  more  numerous 
Lutherans  and  Reformed.  Peter  Becker,  the  leader  of  the  first  company 
of  Dunkers,  was  discouraged  by  the  separation  of  his  people  to  obtain 
homes,  but  his  spirit  was  stirred  by  a  Mennonite  revival  in  Germantown 
in  1722.  The  following  year  he  organized  a  little  church  of  the  German 
Baptist  Brethren.  There  were  other  revivals  under  Dunker  patronage, 
though  the  principal  evangelist  was  a  mystic,  Beissel,  not  of  their 
number.^ 

Beissel  had  come  to  America  intending  to  join  the  mystics  on  the 
Wissahickon,  but  finding  the  tabernacle  deserted  he  became  a  recluse 
like  some  of  the  surviving  members  of  the  order.  He  was  a  man  of 
genius.  He  had  intercourse  with  the  solitary  Pietists,  with  the  Labadists 
of  Maryland,  and  with  Seventh-day  Baptists.  In  1723  he  actually 
joined  the  Dunkers,  but  he  brought  with  him  an  eclectic  assortment  of 
ideas  and  practices  borrowed  from  all  with  whom  he  had  had  relations. 
The  result  was  a  schism  among  the  brethren.  Finally  Beissel  established 
the  famous  communistic  institution  at  Ephrata.'' 

Though  the  Dunkers  were  greatly  weakened  by  constant  defection 
to  their  brethren  who  kept  the  Seventh-day,  they  did  not  lose  the  evangel- 
istic spirit.  There  was  special  evidence  of  this  after  Alexander  Mack, 
founder  of  the  sect,  came  to  Pennsylvania,  seeking  rest  from  wanderings 

'  Sachse,  The  Germaji  Pietists,  pp.  299-386,  402;  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  48. 
'  Sachse,  The  German  Pietists,  pp.  52,  78. 
3  Ibid.,  p.  104. 


lo      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

and  persecutions  in  the  Old  World.  As  a  result  of  frequent  revivals 
a  number  of  churches  were  organized.  The  converts  were  taken,  of 
course,  from  the  neglected  Lutheran  and  Reformed  population.  When 
Zinzendorf  called  the  first  Pennsylvania  synod,  of  which  an  account  will 
be  given  in  a  later  chapter,  the  Dunkers  were  able  to  send  their  delega- 
tion to  the  united  council  of  the  German  churches  as  representing  a  body 
of  earnest  religionists  of  very  considerable  strength.  In  principles  the 
German  Baptist  Brethren  were  like  the  Quakers,  but  they  retained  a 
propagating  zeal  which  the  Quakers  were  fast  losing.' 

Thus  while  the  Great  Awakening  was  part  of  the  contemporaneous 
Methodist  Revival  and  part  of  a  world  movement  which  had  begun  in 
Germany  and  was  known  on  the  Continent  as  Pietism,  so  the  revival  of 
Pietism  among  the  Germans  of  the  Middle  Colonies  was  one  of  the  several 
beginnings  of  the  Great  Awakening.  This  separate  stream  of  emotional 
religion  has  been  traced  in  this  chapter  only  to  its  junction  in  1739 
with  other  streams  of  like  nature.  The  operations  of  Zinzendorf,  the 
Moravian,  Muhlenberg,  the  Lutheran,  and  Schlatter,  the  organizer  of  the 
German  Reformed  Church,  belonging  to  a  later  period,  will  be  described 
in  their  appropriate  connections.  Throughout  the  eighteenth  century 
the  Germans  of  Pennsylvania  were  peculiarly  subject  to  religious  excite- 
ment.^ The  pietistic  sentiments  of  early  and  influential  settlers  and  the 
labors  of  itinerant  evangelists  kept  alive  warm  religious  feeling.  Pietism 
in  its  radical  individualism  brought  to  the  New  World  men  fantastically 
diverse  from  each  other.  Yet  in  spite  of  superficial  differences,  as  true 
Pietists,  they  were  sympathetic  with  all  Christians  and  held  as  a  funda- 
mental principle  that  Christianity  in  its  essence  is  the  life  of  God  in  the 
soul  of  man. 

*  Brumbaugh,  op.  ciL,  pp.  165,  198. 

*  Kuhns,  op.  cit.,  p.  155. 


CHAPTER  II 

FRELINGHUYSEN,  AND  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  REVIVAL 
AMONG  THE  DUTCH  REFORMED 

A  second  distinct  source  of  the  Great  Awakening  is  associated 
with  a  family  name  honored  in  the  annals  of  New  Jersey,  that  of  Freling- 
huysen.  The  comparative  afHuence  of  the  Dutch  in  New  York  and  New 
Jersey  was  very  different  in  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  from 
the  almost  servile  station  of  the  Germans  in  Pennsylvania  and  adjoining 
colonies.  The  Germans  were  more  acted  upon  than  acting  in  the  general 
reUgious  quickening,  at  least  before  the  landing  of  Count  Zinzendorf  upon 
our  shores.  The  reformation  throughout  the  country  did  not  have  its 
one  common  origin  among  these  recent  comers.  It  did  not  spread  from 
them  to  the  Dutch,  Scotch-Irish,  and  New  Englanders  in  the  Middle 
Colonies.  The  revival  in  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  was  a  separate 
movement  in  its  early  stages.  Yet  the  originator  of  this  movement, 
Domine  Frelinghuysen,  was  not  a  Hollander,  and  the  Dutch  language 
was  not  his  native  tongue.  He  was  a  German  and  in  the  fatherland  had 
come  under  pietistic  influence.  So  thoroughly  was  he  the  soul  of  the 
evangelical  revival  among  the  Dutch  until  the  coming  of  Whitefield 
that  the  account  of  the  movement  up  to  that  time  is  the  story  of  his  life. 
These  biographical  details  are  nevertheless  important,  for  their  main 
outline  is  strangely  parallel  with  the  course  of  the  revival  everywhere 
else.  The  reformation  within  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  was  a  notable 
movement,  but  the  direct  influence  of  this  revival  upon  the  Scotch- 
Irish  Presbyterians  was  so  powerful  and  through  them  the  indirect 
influence  upon  the  general  movement  was  so  pronounced  that  some 
have  declared  that  the  actual  beginning  of  the  Great  Awakening  was  in 
those  stirring  meetings  in  log  churches  and  barns  on  the  frontier  of  New 
Jersey.  This  is  claiming  too  much.  A  more  accurate  statement  is  that 
the  Dutch  revival  was  the  second  of  the  distinct  sources  of  the  Great 
Awakening  in  the  Middle  Colonies  and  more  important  for  the  general 
movement  than  the  revival  among  the  Germans. 

The  "  frontier  of  New  Jersey  "■ — what  was  the  social  and  ecclesiastical 
background  of  Frelinghuysen's  labors  ?  The  Valley  of  the  Raritan  had 
been  described  to  the  multiplying  Dutch  of  the  Hudson  Valley  about  the 


12      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  as  "  the  pleasantest  country  that  man 
can  behold."'  A  degree  of  persecution  in  the  province  of  New  York  was 
an  added  incentive  to  the  westward  movement.  The  sturdy  Dutch 
farmers  of  New  Jersey  did  not  have  the  religious  and  educational  advan- 
tages of  New  England  frontiersmen,  but  they  were  like  them  in  this,  that 
as  the  New  Englanders  of  each  succeeding  generation  lost  something  of 
the  religious  devotion  and  Old  World  culture  of  their  fathers,  so  too  the 
Dutchmen  of  the  Middle  Colonies  had  lapsed  from  what  the  Hollanders 
of  the  seventeenth  century  had  been.^  These  frontiersmen  particularly 
were  rough  and  boorish ;  the  moral  delinquencies  of  a  primitive  peasantry 
were  found  among  them.^  Nevertheless  the  Dutch  settlers  of  the  Raritan 
were  in  a  way  religious — in  quite  the  same  way  as  other  men  of  their 
blood  in  both  provinces.'^  In  name  their  religion  was  that  long  before 
defined  by  the  synod  of  Dordrecht;  in  fact  it  was  an  instinctive  attach- 
ment to  their  Dutch  nationality.  The  first  article  of  their  real  creed  was 
therefore  veneration  for  their  language.  The  second  article  was  the 
preservation  of  the  dependence  of  their  churches  on  the  classis  of  Amster- 
dams  as  the  ghost  of  their  former  political  dependence.  They  were 
strenuous  supporters  of  orthodoxy,  but  orthodoxy  to  them  was  doing 
every  least  thing  in  the  same  way  in  which  it  had  always  been  done.^ 
Two  venerable  rites''  were  in  their  minds  the  sum  of  reHgious  duty  and 
privilege.  Of  spiritual  struggles  they  knew  nothing.  There  was  no 
demand  upon  the  emotional  nature  and  little  upon  conduct  except  in  a 
superficial  conformity  to  certain  universally  accepted  maxims  of  morality. 
A  generation  passed  after  the  beginning  of  the  settlement  in  1684 
before  the  Dutch  of  the  Raritan  felt  able  to  call  a  pastor.*  Then  as  a 
united  congregation  they  sent  a  call  through  Domine  Freeman,  of  Long 
Island,  to  Holland. '  He  committed  the  trust  to  a  member  of  the  evangel- 
ical party,  which,  though  containing  great  lights,  was  in  the  minority  in 

'Messier,  Memorial  Sermons,  p.  159. 

*  Messier,  The  Hollander  in  New  Jersey,  p.  4;  Memorial  Sermons,  p.  24. 
J  Frelinghuysen,  Sermons,  pp.  65,  88,  223,  224. 

<  Messier,  Memorial  Sermons,  p.  24. 

s  The  classis  of  the  Reformed  Church  corresponds  to  the  presbytery  of  the  Presby- 
terian. The  jurisdiction  of  this  one  classis  over  the  Dutch  churches,  established  in 
foreign  parts,  grew  out  of  the  custom  of  the  trading  companies  to  apply  to  the  classis 
of  Amsterdam  to  appoint  chaplains  and  pastors  for  their  oversea  factories  and  settle- 
ments. 

*  Ecclesiastical  Records  of  the  State  of  New  York,  pp.  2198,  2208. 
7  Baptism  and  Lord's  Supper. 

^M-Q^sXet,  Memorial  Sermons,  p.  204.  ">  Ibid.,  pp.  163,  166. 


FRELINGHUYSEN  AND  THE  DUTCH  REFORMED  13 

Holland  as  in  Germany.  The  choice  fell  upon  a  young  man  of  enterprise 
and  piety,  Theodorus  J.  Frelinghuysen,  who  had  already  made  a  name 
for  himself,  but  who  welcomed  the  opportunity,  according  to  the  report 
of  the  captain  of  the  ship  on  which  he  sailed,  of  exercising  his  freedom 
from  restraint  in  the  New  World  by  leading  a  reformation  such  as  the 
majority  of  the  ministers  in  Holland  opposed/  It  was  said  that  he 
hoped  to  bring  over  others  of  his  fraternity.  Landing  at  New  York  in 
January,  1 720,  he  was  invited  to  preach  in  the  city.^  His  first  sermon  was 
like  the  proclamation  of  a  new  gospel,  so  animated  was  his  plea  for  a 
religion  of  power.  Formalists  like  Domine  Boel,  junior  pastor  of  the 
Dutch  Reformed  Church,  were  offended  and  sharply  rebuked  the  apostle 
of  revivalism,  who  had  thus  no  sooner  set  foot  on  American  soil  than  he 
aroused  the  opposition  of  men  in  high  place.  Soon  the  university  gradu- 
ate was  making  the  circuit  of  his  four  frontier  churches,  traveling  great 
distances  between  the  scattered  settlements,  fording  streams,  and  pick- 
ing his  way  through  forests.  The  change  was  quite  as  great  for  his 
parishioners  as  for  their  pastor.  Formerly  a  neighboring  minister  had 
made  them  an  occasional  visit  for  the  administration  of  the  ordinances, 
but  their  usual  dependence  had  been  upon  the  halting  reading  of  a 
voorleser.^  Now  they  had  a  pastor,  and  with  him  came  a  teacher,  for 
Dutch  churches,  like  the  German  Reformed,  aimed  to  establish  schools  in 
connection  with  their  churches. 

Never  had  the  people  of  the  Raritan  seen  such  earnestness,  such  pas- 
sion, in  the  pulpit.  Frelinghuysen  defined  life  in  terms  of  which  they  had 
never  dreamed.  The  doctrines  he  taught  were  so  new  that  they  seemed 
a  departure  from  the  Dutch  Reformed  teachings. ^  He  declared  that 
God  hates  the  outward  performance  of  religious  duties  apart  from  a 
suitable  frame  of  mind.s  The  pastor  described  regeneration  as  such  a 
thoroughgoing  conversion,  such  a  crisis  in  the  believer's  experience,^ 
that  almost  none  of  his  hearers  dared  claim  that  they  had  been  converted.' 
The  result  was  that  even  his  elders  and  deacons  who  sat  with  him  at  the 
table  forbore  to  commune.^ 

'The  captain  denied  the  story  in  the  form  reported  by  the  Boels.  Eccl.  Rec. 
of  New  York,  pp.  2182,  2260,  2333,  2386. 

'Ibid.,  p.  2259. 

3  The  voorlescrs  corresponded  to  the  early  readers  in  Scotch  churches.  See  "  Sum 
of  the  First  Book  of  Discipline"  in  Confessions  of  Faith,  p.  56. 

*  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2197. 

5  Frelinghuysen,  op.  cit.,  p.  26.  '  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  2250,  2272. 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  48,  115.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  2255,  2289. 


14      TEE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

The  younger  and  poorer  people  were  disposed  to  accept  this  teaching 
as  true.  Frelinghuysen  maintained  that  in  every  age  it  is  just  such  that 
accept  the  gospel/  The  well-to-do  and  the  former  leaders  in  the  settle- 
ments were  outraged  by  such  teachings.^'  They  rushed  to  New  York  for 
advice.^  Domine  Boel  set  forth  baptismal  regeneration,''  while  according 
to  Frelinghuysen  a  crisis  without  reference  to  a  ceremony  was  necessary. 
That  a  stage  of  this  crisis  might  border  upon  despair  was  abhorrent  doc- 
trine to  Boel. 5  The  claim  that  a  minister  might  examine  another  person 
upon  his  spiritual  attainments,  and  upon  the  basis  of  such  examination 
give  his  judgment  as  to  his  conversion,  was  to  Boel  unqualified  heresy.^ 
The  new  emphasis  upon  the  divine  life  in  the  soul  and  upon  the  leading 
of  the  Spirit  was  in  Boel's  estimation  Quaker  doctrine.^  Boel  was  right 
in  this;  it  is  extraordinary  that  the  Quakers  did  not  themselves  recog- 
nize the  Great  Awakening  as  a  revival  of  their  own  doctrine.  The 
disaffected  returned  to  their  homes,  reporting  upon  the  authority  of  the 
New  York  divine  that  Frelinghuysen  was  a  schismatic  and  heretic. 

Thereupon  the  domine  in  defense  published  three  sermons  which 
contained  his  teaching  upon  the  controverted  points.  Domine  Bartholf , 
who  had  organized  some,  if  not  all,  of  the  churches  in  the  Raritan  Valley, 
and  Freeman,  who  had  introduced  Frelinghuysen  to  them,  united  in  a 
recommendation.  They  judged  the  sermons  not  only  "learned,  well 
digested,  and  thrilling"  but  "highly  sound  and  scriptural."*  Boel 
accepted  the  challenge  so  far  as  to  preach  in  his  own  pulpit  in  opposition 
to  the  teaching  of  these  sermons.'  He  visited  the  disaffected  on  the 
Raritan  and  organized  them  for  resistance."  The  majority  of  the  North 
Branch  congregation  signed  a  paper  notifying  the  heretical  domine  that 
their  meeting-house  was  built  only  for  orthodox  worship."  One  promi- 
nent member  who,  like  many  others,  refused  to  pay  his  subscription  was 
compelled  to  pay  by  civil  action."  The  disaffected  also  appealed  to  the 
courts,  but  without  success.'^  They  even  besought  the  governor  to 
remove  the  heretic;'''  it  was  in  vain. 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  354.  *  Ibid.,  p.  2265. 

'Ibid.,  pp.  2201,  2258,  2264.  ^ Ibid.,  pp.  2272,  2328. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  2266.  "  Ibid.,  p.  2264. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  2250.  "Ibid.,  p.  2210. 

^Ibid.,  p.  2249.  "Ibid.,  p.  2387. 

^Ibid.,  pp.  2252,  2253,  2260.  '3  Frelinghuysen,  op.  cit.,  p.  353. 

''Ibid.,  p.  2179.  '■*  Ibid.,  pp.  29,  31. 


FRELINGHUYSEN  AND  THE  DUTCH  REFORMED  15 

Frelinghuysen  had  advocated  in  his  sermons  the  power  of  the  keys, 
the  power  of  discipline  in  the  hands  of  the  consistory,'  even  to  the  extent 
of  excommunication  of  the  disaffected.^  After  long  delay  four  of  the 
leaders  were  put  under  the  ban.^  They  represented  the  wealth  and, 
according  to  their  own  account,  the  majority  of  the  membership  of  the 
several  congregations.  Thus  the  reward  of  three  years'  toil  was  the 
disruption  of  his  churches.  In  the  next  two  years  the  disaffected 
gathered  the  evidence  against  the  pastor,  and  Lawyer  Boel,  brother  of 
the  domine  of  the  same  name,  wove  it  together  with  considerable  skill.4 
This  famous  Complaint,  making  a  printed  book  of  two  hundred  and  forty- 
six  pages,  pubHshed  in  1725,  is  alone  sufficient  to  gain  for  the  domine  the 
sympathy  of  the  fair-minded.  On  every  page  what  is  now  the  usual 
order  of  things  is  treated  as  the  unheard-of  and  monstrous.  The 
defenders  of  Frelinghuysen  among  the  pastors  shared  in  the  castigation 
given  the  reformer.  Thereupon  Freeman  published  a  defense^  and 
Van  Santvoord  a  dialogue^  in  the  interest  of  Frelinghuysen  and  evan- 
gelical doctrine.  The  Complaint,  on  the  other  hand,  was  sent  overseas 
to  the  classis  of  Amsterdam,  with  a  letter  of  approval  signed  by  a  number 
of  pastors.''  Thus  the  division  which  began  on  the  frontier  now  divided 
the  Dutch  pastors  of  the  two  provinces  into  hostile  camps. 

Frelinghuysen  did  not  believe  that  the  lack  of  success  in  his  early 
ministry  was  anything  but  the  temporary  rebuff  which  every  faithful 
minister  must  expect  in  an  age  when  evangelical  doctrine  had  become 
so  obsolete  as  to  be  mistaken  for  heresy.  He  denounced  the  sins  rife 
in  the  valley  with  such  stinging  directness  that  a  reformation  in  morals 
was  slowly  effected.  He  presented  Christianity  as  a  force  that  revolu- 
tionizes the  conduct  of  the  believer.  The  domine  was  a  university- 
extension  department,  stimulating,  wherever  he  went,  the  intellectual 
life  of  the  people.  He  had  the  genius  to  seize  upon  young  men  of  excep- 
tional abihty  and  charge  them  with  something  of  his  own  force.    The 

•  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  2383,  2403;  Talmage,  A  Sermon,  p.  19.  A  consistory 
was  composed  of  pastor,  elders,  and  deacons,  one  half  of  the  lay  membership  retiring 
each  year.  The  new  members  were  elected  by  the  old  consistory.  This  is  pure 
presbyterian  government,  in  that  the  rulers  are  not  elected  by  the  people.  See 
"Westminster  Directory"  in  Confessions  of  Faith,  p.  487. 

^  Frelinghuysen,  op.  cit.,  p.  82.  *  Ibid.,  p.  2244. 

i  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  2201,  2206,  2212,  2291.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  2307. 

'  Van  Santvoord  was  pastor  on  Staten  Island.    Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2349. 

">  Ibid.,  p.  2309. 


1 6      TEE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

elders  and  deacons  were  converted  one  after  another,  until  the  last  deacon 
made  his  new  confession  in  1725.'  The  members  of  the  four  churches 
were  becoming  a  "very  different  people."  The  congregations  of  the 
domine  increased,  and  there  were  numerous  conversions  among  people 
who  were  not  before  upon  the  roll  of  the  churches.  In  some  years, 
particularly  in  1726,  the  ingathering  was  so  great  proportionately  as  to 
give  a  foregleam  of  the  time  when  Whitefield  should  come  flaming 
through  the  country.  The  subjects  of  the  revival  had  all  experienced 
such  a  conversion  as  had  never  before  been  insisted  upon  in  these  prov- 
inces— a  severe  spiritual  conflict  ending  in  a  passionate  determination 
to  make  the  attainment  of  their  highest  moral  ideals  the  dominating 
purpose  of  their  lives. 

The  revival  spirit  was  not  confined  to  the  four  churches  on  the 
Raritan.  Frelinghuysen  was  invited  by  pastors  to  visit  other  places. 
Lawyer  Boel  asked  in  irony,  "Why  does  he  not  stay  with  those  congre- 
gations whose  minister  he  is  and  first  seek  out  the  many  unconverted 
souls  that  are  there,  instead  of  depriving  them  of  spiritual  food  by  going 
so  often  to  other  places?"^  In  two  instances  he  intruded  on  the  fields 
of  other  pas  tors.  ^  Though  goaded  to  this  by  the  publication  of  pam- 
phlets against  him  charging  heresy,4  and  by  constant  intrusion  upon  his 
own  field,s  this  action  was  inconsistent  with  his  reiterated  complaint 
against  these  pastors  for  this  same  offense.  Perhaps  in  his  own  mind 
intrusion  was  sometimes  justifiable  where  shepherds  were  hireUngs,^ 
but  reprehensible  where  pastors  faithfully  preached  the  gospel.  At  any 
rate,  by  methods  upon  occasion  disorderly  but  in  general  orderly,  the 
revival  was  spreading  from  the  Raritan  Valley  to  other  parts.  At  the 
same  time  pastors  of  other  churches  who  opposed  the  revival  kept  alive 
the  opposition  in  the  valley. 

The  revival  begun  by  Frelinghuysen  also  spread  to  newly  organized 
Presbyterian  churches  in  the  valley.  In  1726  there  were  English- 
speaking  dissenters  scattered  through  the  region  who  were  like  "sheep 
gone  astray.  "7  Some  of  the  people  therefore  called  a  young  Presbyterian 
licentiate,  and  he  was  ordained  at  New  Brunswick  in  the  autumn  of 
that  year.*  His  name  was  Gilbert  Tennent,  who  later  became  known 
on  both  sides  of  the  ocean  as  the  foremost  Presbyterian  promoter  of  the 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  2288,  2289,  2387.         ^  Ibid.,  p.  2275. 
3  Of  Morgan  and  Coens.    Ibid.,  p.  2466. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  2306. 

s  Frelinghuysen,  op.  cit.,p.  $$$. 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2304.  '  Ibid.,  p.  2557. 

*  Webster,  A  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  387. 


FRELINGHUYSEN  AND  THE  DUTCH  REFORMED  17 

Great  Awakening.  The  Dutch  subscribed  to  his  salary  to  encourage 
the  less  numerous  English.'  Even  some  of  the  enemies  of  Frelinghuysen 
did  so  at  first.*  The  domine  gave  him  the  use  of  his  meeting-houses 
and  of  barns  of  adherents  in  which  he  was  himself  accustomed  to  preach. 
After  a  time  the  two  men  entered  upon  exceedingly  cordial  relations,  and 
the  direct  and  pungent  method  of  preaching  which  gave  offense  to  the 
more  worldly  members  of  the  Dutch  churches  was  also  adopted  by  the 
younger  minister.^  Sometimes  they  held  joint  services,  one  speaking 
in  Dutch  and  the  other  in  English.  This  was  shocking  to  the  Dutch 
complainants,  and  to  them  it  was  even  sacrilege  when  the  domine  joined 
with  the  "dissenter,"  as  they  called  him,  in  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's 
Supper.'' 

Henceforth  one  of  the  chief  complaints  against  the  domine  was  his 
encouragement  of  Tennent.  It  was  represented  that  the  introduction 
of  the  English  language  into  Dutch  churches  was  a  violation  of  church 
order.  It  was  reported  to  the  classis  that  this  dissenter,  like  Freling- 
huysen, held  pietistic  views.s  In  reply  to  inquiries  the  domine  main- 
tained that  the  churches  of  Scotland  and  the  Netherlands  were  sister 
Reformed  churches.  It  was  therefore  proper  to  lend  Dutch  meeting- 
houses for  English  services  when  they  were  not  required  for  their  own.^ 
In  1735  he  reported  that  the  English  ministers  in  his  neighborhood  had 
increased  to  three,  and  that  he  was  still  accustomed  to  permit  them  to 
use  the  Dutch  churches. ^  Here  as  everywhere  the  revival  spirit  tended 
to  break  down  denominational  exclusiveness.  The  main  point  of  interest 
in  this  contention  is  that  this  group  of  Presbyterian  ministers,  so  val- 
iantly defended  in  their  day  of  small  things,  was  the  nucleus  of  the  New 
Brunswick  presbytery,  and  that  this  presbytery  became  the  head  and 
front  of  the  evangelistic  movement  in  the  Presbyterian  denomination. 

The  splendid  success  and  widening  influence  of  Frelinghuysen  had 
its  background  of  vexatious  opposition  throughout  his  entire  ministry 
and  of  serious  bodily  impairment  through  the  greater  part  of  it.^  The 
development  of  the  reUgious  life  of  his  adherents  was  made  in  a  measure 
independent  of  his  stated  ministry  by  the  introduction  of  two  innovations 
in  the  several  congregations.     They  demand  a  word  of  explanation. 

The  first  of  these,  introduced  by  the  domine  very  early,  was  private 
meetings  for  prayer  very  much  after  the  pattern  of  the  collegia  pietatis 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2557. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  2588.  s  Ibid.,  p.  2426. 
^  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  293.  '  Ibid.,  p.  2557. 

*  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  2466,  2587.  '  Ibid.,  pp.  2667,  2678. 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  2520,  2556,  2640;  Frelinghuysen,  op.  cii.,  pp.  211,  355. 


1 8      TEE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

of  the  German  revival.  The  complainants  in  1725  ask,  "Is  that  the 
way  to  win  souls,  when  one  holds  secret  meetings,  into  which  those 
whose  souls  are  hungry  are  not  admitted  ?  "^  In  his  memorial  sermon  of 
1745  the  domine  announces  that  the  prayer  meetings  "are  hereafter  to 
be  held  in  public."^  The  inference  is  unavoidable  that  these  private 
devotional  meetings  for  twenty  years  or  more  were  open  only  to  con- 
verts and  seekers  whose  loyalty  to  the  new  evangel  could  be  trusted. 

The  justification  for  making  these  meetings  private  appears  from 
their  connection  with  another  innovation  of  Frelinghuysen,  the  intro- 
duction of  lay  exhortation  and  lay  preaching,  a  measure  always  opposed 
in  the  eighteenth  century.^  Apparently  the  first  appointment  of 
"helpers"  was  tentative  and  informal,  but  in  1736  there  was  the  election 
by  the  united  consistory  of  one  or  more  lay  helpers  for  each  congrega- 
tion.'' They  led  these  private  devotional  meetings  and  also  the  public 
meetings  of  the  church  in  the  absence  of  the  pastor.  In  the  public 
meetings  their  functions  at  first  were  no  doubt  those  of  the  voorleser, 
but  as  several  of  them  developed  surprising  powers  of  leadership  and 
effective  public  address  they  insensibly  passed  from  readers  to  exhorters 
and  preachers.  The  most  eminent  of  these  helpers  was  Hendrick  Fischer, 
whose  sermons  were  published  and  were  greatly  prized  in  the  valley  as 
long  as  the  language  in  which  they  were  written  remained  in  use.^  In 
the  evening  of  his  life  Fischer  was  the  president  of  the  New  Jersey 
Provincial  Congress  and  chairman  of  the  Committee  of  Safety.^  It  was 
the  church  within  the  church  which  trained  such  laymen  as  Fischer  and 
contributed  to  the  high  intellectual  and  spiritual  character  ultimately 
attained  by  the  members  of  this  group  of  churches. 

Another  measure  by  which  Frelinghuysen  extended  his  influence 
in  New  Jersey,  New  York,  and  in  Holland  itself  was  the  frequent  publi- 
cation of  sermons.''  His  writings  made  a  stir,  and  no  wonder,  for  they 
excelled  in  breadth  of  culture  and  emotional  power.*  These  sermons 
were  not  only  an  instrumentality  but  a  proof  of  the  virility  of  the  move- 
ment.    The  same  may  be  said  of  the  numerous  church  edifices  which 

^  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2275.  '  Frelinghuysen,  op.  cit.,  p.  360. 

3  Messier,  Memorial  Sermons,  pp.  27,  171. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  241;   Steele,  Historical  Discourse,  pp.  39,  41. 

s  Corwin's  Manual,  p.  271.  *  Steele,  op.  cit.,  p.  65. 

7  The  last  publication  is  not  dated.  These  sermons  were  published  in  English  in 
1856. 

*  Messier,  Memorial  Sermons,  p.  174;  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2698;  Freling- 
huysen, op.  cit.,  p.  10. 


FRELINGHUYSEN  AND  THE  DUTCH  REFORMED  19 

the  energetic  supporters  of  the  revival  erected,  far  outstripping  in  this 
practical  demonstration  of  their  faith  their  once  more  numerous  and 
more  wealthy  opposers. 

The  genuineness  of  the  man  and  the  movement  finally  won  the  sup- 
port of  the  moderate  evangelicals  who  had  feared  what  they  considered 
the  rashness  of  the  leader.  Chief  among  them  was  the  genial  Domine 
DuBois,  senior  pastor  of  the  collegiate  church  of  New  York  City. 
DuBois  began  to  concert  measures  with  those  who  desired  greater 
independence  for  the  establishment  of  a  subordinate  American  classis.' 
This  body  was  to  be  called  a  "coetus"  and  was  to  be  subordinate  to  the 
classis  of  Amsterdam.  No  sooner  did  the  progressive  pastors,  including 
those  of  evangelical  sentiment,  begin  this  movement  than  Domine 
Boel  began  a  counter-movement  showing  irreconcilable  opposition  to  the 
plan. 

Such  was  the  alignment  of  parties  in  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church 
when  Whitefield  came  in  1739  and  again  in  1740  as  the  apostle  of  the 
Great  Awakening.  Domine  Boel  denied  him  the  use  of  the  Dutch 
church,^  but  the  senior  pastor  was  ready  to  cast  his  great  influence  on 
the  side  of  the  revival.^  How  exasperating  it  was  in  1740  to  Domine 
Boel  and  his  friend  Commissary  Vesey,  of  Trinity  Church,  to  see  the 
aged  and  popular  DuBois  uniting  with  Frelinghuysen  and  the  Presby- 
terian minister,  Pemberton,  in  the  support  of  this  reforming  clergyman 
of  the  Church  of  England!  These  three  ministers  mounted  the  plat- 
form erected  for  the  young  orator,  from  which  he  preached  to  the 
assembled  thousands. 

Thus  the  story  of  the  revival  among  the  Dutch,  as  among  the  Ger- 
mans, has  been  traced  to  the  time  when  under  the  leadership  of  White- 
field  the  movement  became  general.  Frelinghuysen  had  come  to  the 
Raritan  Valley  with  the  announced  purpose  of  leading  in  a  "purer 
reformation."  He  was  rashly  independent.  His  mission  was  to  a 
people  stubbornly  conservative.  He  maintained  a  position  concerning 
the  qualifications  for  admission  to  church  membership  and  communion 
table  which  was  disavowed  by  the  classis  of  Amsterdam,^  a  position  which 
Gilbert  Tennent  and  the  New  Side  Presbyterians  never  distinctly 
attained,^  and  which  was  not  advocated  by  Jonathan  Edwards  until 
after  the  close  of  the  revival.  When  Jonathan  Edwards  changed  his 
view  upon  the  subject  and  abandoned  his  former  practice  and  that  of  his 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  2679,  2681,  2694,  2715. 

'Ibid.,  p.  2798.  i  Ibid.,  p.  2799.  *Ibid.,  p.  2678. 

s  Gilbert  Tennent,  Irenicum,  p.  27. 


20      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

eminent  grandfather  before  him,  he  was  dismissed  from  the  pastorate 
of  the  Northampton  church,  much  to  his  own  humiliation,  the  surprise 
of  all  New  England,  and  the  everlasting  regret  of  the  church,  which 
through  its  relation  to  him  and  the  Great  Awakening  had  become 
famous.'  Frelinghuysen,  on  the  contrary,  maintained  his  position  at 
the  head  of  four  churches,  not  only  from  1720  to  1739,  but  to  the  end  of 
his  life  in  1748,  and  he  was  followed  in  the  pastorate  over  those  churches 
by  men  of  his  own  blood  and  spirit. 

'  Dwight,  Edwards,  p.  305. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  TENNENTS,  AND  THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  REVIVAL 
AMONG  THE  PRESBYTERIANS 

The  work  of  William  Tennent,  of  Log  College  fame,  and  of  his  sons 
and  their  associates  was  closely  related  to  the  work  of  Frelinghuysen, 
but  the  revival  among  the  Presbyterians  was  more  than  an  expansion 
of  the  revival  among  the  Dutch  Reformed.  It  was  essentially  an  original 
movement,  and  therefore  may  be  treated  as  the  third  distinct  source  of 
the  Great  Awakening  in  the  Middle  Colonies.  To  understand  the  course 
of  the  revival  among  the  Presbyterians  it  is  necessary  to  look  at  the 
historical  background  and  see  how  like  and  yet  unlike  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  America  was  to  its  sister  Reformed  churches,  the  German  and 
the  Dutch. 

When  the  presbytery  of  Philadelphia  was  formed  in  1706  there  was 
no  organic  connection  with  the  churches  in  Scotland  and  Ireland.  The 
new  church  in  the  colonies  was  not  in  a  state  of  vassalage  to  the  parent 
bodies.  It  was  not  necessary,  therefore,  to  obtain  permission  in  Europe 
to  ordain  candidates  to  the  ministry.  In  other  respects,  especially  in 
the  matter  of  creed,  the  church  did  not  reproduce  the  rigid  lines  of  a 
national  church.  Had  it  done  so  it  could  never  have  possessed  the  propa- 
gating and  assimilative  power  which  made  it  the  educator  of  a  large 
section  of  the  American  people.  The  broad  basis  laid  at  the  foundation 
of  the  church  was  due  to  the  composite  character  of  its  membership,  for 
while  the  major  part  was  Scotch  and  Scotch-Irish,  properly  called 
Presbyterian,  the  minor  part  was  New  England  Congregational,  then 
also  very  generally  called  Presbyterian.  The  tremendous  increase  in 
the  Presbyterian  population  in  the  Middle  Colonies  between  the  years 
1706  and  1739  was  due  less  to  the  absorption  of  New  England  Presby- 
terians than  to  the  immigration  from  the  north  of  Ireland. 

A  century  of  struggle  had  made  the  men  of  Ulster  a  race  of  iron  and 
blood.  Their  coming  to  America  rose  almost  to  the  proportions  of  a 
national  exodus.'  Those  persecuted  for  religion  were  attracted  to  the 
colony  where  Penn  had  made  the  conscience  free.  They  settled  to  some 
extent  among  the  Quakers  and  Germans,  but  in  great  numbers  they 

'  Thompson,  Presbyterians,  p.  23. 


22      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  TEE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

pushed,  or  were  pushed,  to  the  frontier.  There  they  were  exposed  to 
Indian  raids  which  were  chargeable  principally  to  French  machinations 
but  in  part  to  their  own  aggressions.'  The  stream  of  immigration, 
deflected  by  the  mountain  walls  and  danger  from  the  Indians,  turned 
toward  the  southwest,  following  the  Valley  of  Virginia.  In  this  way  the 
Presbyterians  came  into  possession  of  the  best  lands  of  the  southern 
provinces.     Thus  they  occupied  the  frontier  from  New  York  to  Georgia. 

The  Presbyterian  immigrants  who  were  clearing  farms  for  themselves 
in  the  forests  of  Pennsylvania  and  other  Middle  Colonies  entertained  a 
static  conception  of  Christianity.^  The  Westminster  Confession  was  to 
them  a  finality.  Precedent  was  invested  with  the  authority  of  law. 
They  were  narrow,  having  no  appreciation  of  the  beauty  of  the  English 
ritual  and  hating  prelacy  and  the  forms  that  brought  to  mind  the  tyranny 
under  which  they  had  suffered  in  Ireland.  Their  national  prejudices 
were  strong  and  yet  they  were  chronically  subject  to  divisions  among 
themselves  over  infinitesimal  questions  of  policy.  These  boisterous 
Ulstermen  were  not  congenial  neighbors  to  peace-loving  Quakers  and 
Mennonites,^  and  still  less  to  the  Indians,  who  were  Canaanites  in  their 
eyes.-* 

It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  among  conservatives  and  formalists, 
such  as  the  Irish  Presbyterians  were,  men  lacking  the  gentler  graces  of 
Christianity,  the  doctrine  of  the  new  birth  was  little  known.s  A  deep 
conviction  of  sin,  preparing  the  way  for  what  the  revivalists  called  "a 
saving  closure  with  Christ,"  was  stigmatized  as  "melancholy,  trouble  of 
the  mind,  or  despair,"  whenever  it  did  appear  among  this  people.  They 
were  without  that  deep  emotional  experience  which  the  Pietists  denomi- 
nated "the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man."  They  were  strangers  to  a 
consuming  passion  for  God  and  personal  righteousness.  They  made 
no  pretension  to  a  new  heart  with  its  new  sympathy  for  the  distressed 
and  unfortunate  of  every  race  and  creed.  Therefore  Rev.  Samuel 
Blair  says,  not  only  of  his  own  church  at  Fagg's  Manor,  Pennsylvania, 
which  had  been  without  a  pastor  from  its  erection  in  1730  to  the  year 
1739,  but  of  the  Scotch-Irish  churches  in  general  in  those  parts,  that 
religion  "lay  dying  and  ready  to  expire  its  last  breath."^  The  trans- 
planting of  this  people  from  Scotland  to  Ireland  involved  a  loss  religiously 

'  Hanna,  The  Scotch-Irish,  II,  64. 

'  Thompson,  op.  cit.,  p.  24.  3  Hanna,  op.  ciL,  II,  63. 

^  Gordon,  The  History  of  Pennsylvania,  p.  410;  Thompson,  op.  cit.,  p.  24. 

5  Samuel  Blair  in  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  243. 

'  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  244. 


THE  TENNENTS  AND  THE  PRESBYTERIANS  23 

and  morally,  and  now  a  greater  loss  attended  the  removal  to  a  wilderness.' 
There  was  no  sufficient  curb  upon  rampant  appetites.  This  people  was 
in  danger  of  sinking  to  a  condition  of  intellectual  and  moral  degeneracy. 

The  leading  men  among  the  immigrants  from  Ireland  appreciated 
the  danger  of  barbarism,  but  as  the  people  longed  for  religious  advantages 
the  hope  seemed  to  be  in  a  faithful  ministry.  Here  a  new  danger  con- 
fronted the  infant  church.  The  blight  of  Arianism  had  appeared  in  the 
church  in  Ireland,  and  ministers  holding  deistic  and  rationalistic  prin- 
ciples were  coming  to  the  colonies.  Others  whose  usefulness  at  home 
was  destroyed  by  scandal  sought  in  America  to  re-establish  their  reputa- 
tions. There  were  instances  in  the  colonies  of  seemingly  good  men 
faUing  victim  to  the  prevailing  laxity,  and  the  church  in  its  need  of 
ministers  too  easily  forgiving  their  offenses.^  The  majority  of  the  Scotch- 
Irish  ministers  were  men  of  high  character,  conservatives  though  they 
were,  and  they  were  alarmed  at  the  danger  to  the  church. 

The  problem  was  how  to  protect  the  Presbyterian  Church  from 
heretical  and  immoral  ministers.  A  solution  proposed  at  an  early  date 
by  an  influential  section  of  the  Scotch-Irish  ministers,  very  natural  to 
men  trained  in  the  rigid  system  of  their  native  country,  was  enforced 
subscription  to  the  Westminster  Confession.  Subscription  had  been 
used  in  Scotland  to  rid  the  church  of  prelatical  ministers  and  in  Ireland 
to  drive  out  the  Arians.  In  America  the  conservatives  hoped  to  pre- 
serve orthodoxy  by  the  same  means. ^ 

But  to  enforce  subscription  to  a  particular  exposition  of  the  Calvin- 
istic  system  and  to  bring  the  local  churches  and  their  ministers  under 
the  strict  surveillance  of  the  central  governing  body  would  be  a  radical 
departure  from  the  liberal  policy  adopted  in  1706.  The  broad  basis 
of  union  had  brought  a  number  of  churches  of  New  England  origin  into 
the  Presbyterian  Church.  These  churches  and  their  pastors  were  not 
strict  Presbyterians  in  their  views  upon  church  government.  As  a 
Puritan  heritage  they  were  more  kindly  disposed  than  were  the  Scotch- 
Irish,  with  a  few  significant  exceptions,  to  the  ideals  of  personal  religion 
soon  to  be  proclaimed  by  the  evangelists  of  the  Great  Awakening. 
Jonathan  Dickinson,  of  Elizabethtown,  was  the  intellectual  giant  of  the 
synod,  for  the  one  presbytery  of  1706  was  in  1722  a  synod  with  four  sub- 
ordinate presbyteries.     Among  the  American  theologians  of  the  period 

'  Thompson,  op.  cit.,  p.  29. 

^Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  61,  65,  137;  Gillespie,  A  Letter  to  the 
Presbytery  of  New  York,  p.  27. 

3  Hodge,  Constitutional  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  Part  I,  p.  88;  Thomp- 
son, op.  cit.,  p.  26. 


24      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

he  was  second  only  to  Jonathan  Edwards.  According  to  Dickinson's 
sermon,  preached  before  the  synod  of  Philadelphia  in  1722,  Christ  alone 
is  the  lawmaker  of  the  church,  and  the  church  has  only  administrative 
functions.  It  may  decide  upon  rules  in  application  of  the  general  laws 
found  in  the  New  Testament,  but  these  rules  are  not  properly  designated 
as  acts  or  constitutions. '  They  do  not  have  the  authority  of  laws.  A  wide 
liberty  should  be  left  to  the  individual  whose  conscience  does  not  permit 
him  to  follow  them.^  Church  judicatories  may  in  cases  of  scandal  and 
heresy  try  ministers  for  the  violation  of  Christ's  laws,  but  these  courts 
ought  not  to  censure  ministers  for  the  violation  of  ecclesiastical  regula- 
tions against  which  their  consciences  rebel.  He  concedes  that  a  com- 
prehensive creed  may  be  useful,  but  insists  that  subscription  to  it  must 
not  be  required.^  Such,  in  outline,  was  the  masterful  New  England 
argument  which  stayed  the  hand  of  the  conservative  majority. 

The  Scotch-Irish  conservatives  were  too  much  in  earnest  and  too 
much  alarmed  by  a  real  evil  to  cease  the  advocacy  of  their  favorite 
measure.  Dickinson  then  published  an  answer  to  their  latest  overture. 
He  advocated  the  strict  examination  of  all  candidates  for  the  ministry 
before  their  admission  to  office.^  The  result  of  this  debate,  which  threat- 
ened to  disrupt  the  infant  church,  was  the  adoption  of  a  compromise 
in  1729.  All  legislative  power  in  the  church  was  utterly  disclaimed. 
Ministers  were  required  to  declare  their  agreement  with  the  Westminster 
Confession  "in  all  the  essential  and  necessary  articles,"  and  if  they 
entertained  scruples  with  respect  to  any  article  they  were  to  make 
declaration  of  these  scruples,  and  the  presbytery  would  decide  whether 
the  disagreement  was  upon  essentials  or  not.  This  was  the  famous 
Adopting  Act.5 

This  line  of  division,  which  was  drawn  at  first  on  the  basis  of  nation- 
ality, Scotch-Irish  against  New  Englander,  came  in  course  of  time  to 
be  drawn  between  the  conservative  majority  and  the  progressive  and 
evangeHcal  minority  without  reference  to  geographical  origin.  Dickin- 
son had  advocated  an  examination  not  only  of  a  candidate's  beUef 
but  of  his  experience.  As  the  evangehcal  party  grew,  it  more  and  more 
insisted  upon  the  evidence  of  piety.  Gilbert  Tennent,  son  of  Ireland 
though  he  was,  was  a  strenuous  advocate  of  this  principle.^  But  the 
formalists  held  the  view  that  any  inquisitorial  prying  into  the  hidden 

'  Dickinson's  Sermon  Preached  at  the  Opening  of  the  Synod,  p.  11. 
"Hodge,  op.  cit.,  Part  I,  p.  120.  ^  Dickinson,  op.  cit.,  p.  22. 

■•  Dickinson's  Remarks  upon  ....  Overture,  p.  16. 
5  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  92.         ^  Ibid.,  p.  108. 


THE  TENNENTS  AND  THE  PRESBYTERIANS  25 

experiences  of  men  was  an  assumption  of  the  divine  prerogative.  They 
denied  the  right  to  judge  candidates  in  this  way  but  would  pronounce 
men  fit  candidates  if  they  possessed  the  necessary  educational  training, 
subscribed  to  the  standards,  and  lived  a  moral  life.^  Thus  in  the  years 
before  the  coming  of  Whitefield  an  evangeUcal  and  a  conservative  party 
formed  in  the  Presbyterian  Church.  The  one  sought  for  essential  ortho- 
doxy; the  other  insisted  on  exact  conformity  to  fixed  standards.  The 
one  left  the  individual  considerable  latitude  for  self-direction  when  his 
conscience  bade  him  protest  against  the  administrative  measures  of  the 
majority;  the  other  held  him  to  strict  accountabihty  to  what  it  con- 
sidered the  laws  of  the  church.  The  one  emphasized  piety  as  the  first 
essential  in  a  gospel  ministry  and  sought  for  evidence  of  conversion  and 
an  inner  call  to  the  ministry;  the  other  declared  that  it  was  a  matter  of 
conscience  with  conservatives  not  to  institute  such  proceedings.  A 
majority  of  New  Englanders  and  a  minority  of  the  Scotch-Irish  were 
members  of  the  evangelical  party.  With  few  exceptions  the  leaders  of 
both  parties,  New  Sides  and  Old  Sides,  were  sincerely  devoted  to  truth 
as  they  saw  it. 

The  course  of  the  revival  among  the  Presbyterians  is  unintelligible 
unless  one  grasps  this  distinction  between  the  conservative  and  pro- 
gressive parties.  Furthermore,  there  was  a  distinction  between  the 
radical  advocates  of  revivalism  and  the  moderate  evangelicals.  While 
there  were  splendid  figures  among  the  New  Englanders  in  the  Middle 
Colonies,  Dickinson,  Pemberton,  of  New  York,  and  Burr,  of  Newark, 
among  them,  warmly  devoted  to  evangelical  principles,  they  were  not  the 
chief  promoters  of  the  revival.  They  did  not,  above  all  others,  prepare 
the  way  for  Whitefield  and  continue  his  work.  The  itinerating  evangel- 
ists that  set  the  country  on  fire  were,  for  the  most  part,  Scotch-Irishmen. 
They  were  the  ministers  of  the  New  Brunswick  presbytery,  the  nucleus 
of  which  had  been  fostered  by  Domine  FreUnghuysen,  and  members  of 
other  presbyteries  who  held  close  relations  with  this  group.  These 
evangeUsts  were,  with  very  few  exceptions,  graduates  of  the  Log  College, 
established  by  the  elder  Tennent  at  Neshaminy.  This  was  the  New 
Brunswick  or  radical  New  Side  party. 

WilUam  Tennent  was  a  priest  of  the  Church  of  Ireland  who  was 
graduated  at  the  University  of  Glasgow,  and  whose  wife  was  the  daughter 
of  a  Presbyterian  minister.^  He  became  dissatisfied  with  the  hierarchical 
system,  as  having  no  foundation  in  the  Scriptures,  and  with  the  Arminian 

'  Ibid.,  p.  319;  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  Part  I,  p.  204;  Gillespie,  op.  cit.,  p.  5. 
'  Briggs,  American  Presbyterianism,  p.  186. 


26      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

principles  of  the  clergy.  Upon  coming  to  America  he  was  received  into 
membership  of  the  synod  in  September,  1718.'  He  settled  at  East- 
chester,  New  York,^  removing  to  Bensalem,  Pennsylvania,  in  17  21.* 
Three  years  later  he  returned  to  New  York.  He  resided  at  Bedford 
and  preached  in  the  several  towns  of  Westchester  county  with  wondrous 
zeal.''  In  1726  he  retraced  his  steps  to  the  neighborhood  of  Bensalem 
and  became  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  church  at  Neshaminy.s  He 
established  an  additional  preaching  station  at  Deep  Run,  twelve  miles 
distant,  and  in  1732  this  was  erected  into  a  church.  "  William  Tennent," 
according  to  Dr.  C.  A.  Briggs,  "was  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  trophies 
won  by  Presbyterianism  from  Episcopacy  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
eighteenth  century."^  Webster,  the  conservative  Presbyterian  his- 
torian, concedes  that  "to  Wilham  Tennent,  above  all  others,  is  owing 
the  prosperity  and  enlargement  of  the  Presbyterian  Church. "^  No 
little  interest  therefore  attaches  to  the  sermon  notes  made  by  this  father 
of  Presbyterian  education  in  America.  One  time-stained  paper  con- 
tains the  notes  of  a  sacramental  sermon  preached  in  Ireland  in  171 7, 
when  he  was  still  a  priest  of  the  Irish  church,  and  preached  again  at 
Bedford,  New  York,  on  December  i,  1724,  when  he  was  a  minister  of 
the  Presbyterian  Church.  In  this  sermon  he  distinguishes  those  who 
come  to  the  Lord's  Supper  from  those  who  really  partake  of  it.  He 
insists  on  spiritual  qualifications  to  the  profitable  partaking  of  the  supper. 
Upon  those  not  thus  qualified  exhortations  are  lost,  and  threatenings 
addressed  to  them  are  spoken  to  the  wind.*  The  elder  Tennent  was 
evidently  an  extemporaneous  preacher,  for  his  sermon  notes  required 
amphfication  in  preaching — a  sign  in  that  day  of  the  extreme  evangelical. 
Though  he  is  represented  as  having  been  a  powerful  preacher,  and 
certainly  he  was  very  much  of  an  itinerant,  his  great  work  was  that  of 
an  educator. 

William  Tennent's  study  became  a  school  for  the  education  of  his 
four  sons.  Upon  his  settlement  at  Neshaminy  in  1726,  for  the  better 
accommodation  of  his  school  and  the  reception  of  other  students,  he  built 
the  log  house  which  was  called  in  derision  the  Log  College.  The  praises 
which  Whitefield  in  his  journal  bestowed  upon  this  school  of  the  prophets 

'  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  49.  ^  Briggs,  op.  cit.,  p.  187. 

3  Murphy,  The  Presbytery  of  the  Log  College,  pp.  69,  197. 

*  Briggs,  op.  cit.,  p.  187.  s  Murphy,  op.  cit.,  p.  70. 

*  Briggs,  op.  cit.,  p.  187. 

7  "Webster,  A  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  367. 

*  MS  in  Presbyterian  Historical  Society  Library  at  Philadelphia. 


THE  TENNENTS  AND  THE  PRESBYTERIANS  27 

must  have  seemed  extravagant  to  his  readers,  but  the  subsequent 
history  of  the  sixteen  or  more  graduates  and  the  work  which  they  per- 
formed as  evangeUsts  and  educators  justify  the  glowing  words  of  the 
great  orator/  It  was  the  mother  not  only  of  Princeton  but  of  many 
schools  south  and  west  and  north.  Other  ministers  prepared  men  for 
college  or  superintended  their  theological  reading  after  their  graduation, 
but  the  Log  College  gave  ministerial  candidates  their  college  education 
and  frequently  their  entire  training.  The  scholarship  which  several  of 
these  men  attained  testifies  to  the  thoroughness  of  their  preparation 
under  the  instruction  of  Tennent,  but  what  distinguished  them  above 
all  others  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  was  their  flaming  evangelistic 
zeal.     Piety  had  chief  place  in  the  curriculum.^ 

Where  did  the  Log  College  get  its  sacred  fire  ?  Not  from  Domine 
Frelinghuysen,  though  his  influence  on  Gilbert  Tennent  was  great. 
The  Pietism  of  Frelinghuysen  but  fanned  the  Puritanism  of  the  Tennents. ' 
The  religious  teaching  of  the  father  was  reflected  in  the  religious  experi- 
ences of  the  sons  long  years  before  they  knew  of  the  Dutch  domine. 
When  Gilbert  Tennent  was  fourteen  years  old  and  his  father  was  still 
a  priest  of  the  Church  of  Ireland,  "he  began  to  be  seriously  concerned 
for  the  salvation  of  his  soul  and  continued  so  for  several  years,  being 
often  in  great  agony  of  spirit."  After  the  usual  preparatory  studies  he 
began  the  study  of  divinity,  but  his  convictions  that  his  state  was  bad 
did  not  permit  him  to  entertain  the  purpose  of  entering  the  ministry. 
Therefore  he  began  the  study  of  medicine  and  continued  it  for  a  year, 
but  the  emotional  experience  which  he  regarded  as  essential  came  to 
him,  and  then,  in  the  language  of  the  time,  "he  was  satisfied  as  to  his 
interest  in  the  divine  favor.  "^  Thus  in  his  youth  he  held  to  the  absolute 
necessity  of  conversion  as  a  prerequisite  to  entrance  into  the  ministry. 
Yet  the  Old  Lights  in  New  England  and  the  Old  Sides  in  the  Middle 
Colonies  stoutly  contended  that  if  a  man  were  orthodox  and  moral  he 
could  be  a  useful  minister  even  without  conversion. 

After  the  conversion  of  Gilbert  Tennent  and  before  he  had  per- 
manently left  the  home  of  his  parents  his  brother  John  experienced  a 
far  more  cataclysmic  change  than  his  own  had  been.  The  life  of  the 
youth  was  "free  from  gross  enormities,"  but  "his  conviction  of  sin," 
says  Gilbert,  "and  the  state  of  danger  and  misery  he  was  brought  into 
by  it  was  the  most  violent  in  degree  of  any  that  ever  I  saw."  It  was 
in  vain  that  the  promises  of  Scripture  were  presented  to  the  seeker. 

'  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  44.  ^  Alexander,  Log  College,  pp.  20,  44. 

3  Finley,  The  Successful  Minister,  Appendix. 


28      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

Finally,  when  John  and  his  brother  William  were  both  so  dangerously- 
sick  that  their  lives  were  despaired  of,  a  rich  discovery  of  God's  love 
suddenly  came  to  John,  even  when  his  death  was  momentarily  expected. 
So  rapidly  did  his  strength  return  that  in  a  few  hours  he  was  led  exultantly 
to  the  room  of  his  brother  William.^  Both  recovered.  Such  experiences 
in  the  Tennent  household  were  regarded,  no  doubt,  by  conservative 
Presbyterians  as  the  excesses  of  enthusiasm,  but  the  Tennents  themselves 
never  lost  the  deep  impress  of  such  crises  in  their  family  history.  Before 
Gilbert  Tennent  began  to  learn  from  Frelinghuysen  the  practical  meas- 
ures of  the  Pietists  the  Tennent  household  was  thoroughly  committed 
to  the  old  Puritan  conception  of  conversion.  The  evangeUstic  fire  of 
the  Log  College  men  must  therefore  be  attributed  primarily  to  William 
Tennent,  their  teacher. 

The  success  of  the  sons  of  Tennent,  presently  to  be  related,  brought 
a  storm  of  criticism  upon  the  Log  College.  Conservatives  feared  that 
the  Presbyterian  Church  would  be  deluged  by  a  hoard  of  half-educated 
enthusiasts.  What  then  was  the  character  of  the  instruction  given  at 
the  Log  College  ?  Gilbert  Tennent  was  the  first  English-speaking  candi- 
date for  the  ministry  who  received  his  education  privately  in  the  Middle 
Colonies,  and  not  in  the  schools  of  New  England  or  of  the  British  Isles. 
The  presbytery  of  Philadelphia  approved  highly  of  his  qualifications.^ 
After  the  usual  trials  he  was  licensed  in  May,  1725,  and  Yale  College 
conferred  on  him  the  honorary  degree  of  A.M.  in  the  following  autumn.^ 
As  required  by  the  form  of  government,  he  was  no  doubt  examined  by 
the  presbytery  upon  his  knowledge  of  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin,  logic, 
philosophy,  and  divinity.''  It  appears,  therefore,  that  Gilbert  Tennent, 
first  graduate  of  the  school  afterward  called  the  Log  College,  fairly  met 
these  requirements. 

The  published  sermons  of  John  Tennent,  who  died  in  1732,  throw 
light  upon  the  character  of  the  training  in  his  father's  school.  Each 
sermon  has  an  elaborate  exegetical  introduction,  abounding  in  Greek 
and  Latin  words,  according  to  the  taste  of  the  time,  while  the  body  of 
the  sermon  contains  quotations  from  the  ancient  fathers  and  from  British 
theologians.  Gilbert  Tennent  says  of  his  brother:  "He  made  no  con- 
temptible progress  in  the  learned  languages  and  also  in  philosophical 

'  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  p.  100. 
»  Finley,  op.  cit.,  Appendix. 
3  Webster,  op.  cit.,  p.  387. 

*"Form  of  Church  Government"  in  Confessions  of  Faith  ....  Church  of 
Scotland,  p.  180. 


TEE  TENNENTS  AND  THE  PRESBYTERIANS  29 

and  theological  studies;  but  he  particularly  excelled  in  the  polemical 
and  casuistical  branches  of  divinity."' 

Without  attempting  to  present  all  the  evidence  upon  the  character 
of  the  instruction,  the  testimony  concerning  three  other  Log  College 
men  will  be  added.  Samuel  Blair  studied  five  years  at  the  Log  College,^ 
and  we  learn  from  his  own  pupil,  Robert  Smith,  that  frequently  New  Side 
preachers  obtained  their  education  in  that  time,  though  most  of  them 
studied  longer.^  Blair  died  in  1751,  and  Samuel  Finley  in  his  funeral 
sermon  gave  a  very  complete  representation  of  the  scholarly  attainments 
of  his  friend  and  fellow  educator.  He  speaks  of  Blair's  store  of  critical 
learning,  his  scholarly  habits  in  the  impartial  search  for  truth,  and  his 
independence  of  thought  in  reaching  conclusions.  He  was  especially 
conversant  with  the  Scriptures  in  the  original  languages,  and  he  made  the 
knowledge  of  divinity  the  business  of  his  Kfe.  His  attainments  in  phi- 
losophy were  known  to  few,  but  in  his  last  years  he  had  "  greatly  improved 
himself  therein.""  From  this  statement  it  is  obvious  that  excellence 
in  science,  particularly  the  various  branches  of  mathematics,  then  the 
vogue  at  Yale,5  was  not  attributed  to  Log  College  men. 

Such  was  President  Finley's  characterization  of  his  friend,  but  of 
Finley  himself  it  was  said  that  he  greatly  surpassed  his  predecessor, 
President  Davies,  of  Princeton,  a  student  of  Samuel  Blair,  "both  in 
scholarship  and  skill  in  teaching,"  but  that  Davies  had  a  more  perfect 
acquaintance  with  English  Uterature.^  Again  the  inference  is  allowable 
that  the  training  at  the  Log  College  emphasized  the  ancient  classics  to 
the  neglect  of  modern  literature. 

When  John  Rowland  died  in  1745  Gilbert  Tennent  in  his  funeral 
sermon  said  of  Rowland  "  that  he  was  completely  qualified  for  the  minis- 
terial work  in  respect  of  natural  and  acquired  endowment,  and  excelled 
in  those  of  a  gracious  nature. "^  Though  the  storm  of  conservative 
criticism  broke  upon  the  head  of  Rowland,  there  was  no  charge  that  his 

'  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  p.  102.  ^  Murphy,  op.  cit.,  p.  87. 

3  Robert  Smith,  The  Detection  Detected,  p.  124. 

<  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  p.  164. 

'Thomas  Clap,  rector  or  president  of  Yale,  1739-66,  was  eminent  as  a  mathe- 
matician. In  1758  Livingston,  at  the  age  of  twelve,  entered  Yale.  He  was  chiefly 
occupied  during  the  first  half  of  his  collegiate  life  with  the  various  branches  of  mathe- 
matics. In  riper  years  he  considered  this  time  spent  to  little  purpose.  Gunn,  Memoirs 
of  the  Rev.  John  H.  Livingston,  pp.  40-42. 

^  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  p.  207. 

7  Gilbert  Tennent,  A  Funeral  Sermon  ....  Rev.  John  Rowland,  p.  39. 


30      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  TEE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

preparation  was  in  any  respect  different  from  that  of  other  Log  College 
men  who  had  been  regularly  admitted  into  the  ministry. 

The  answer  to  the  question,  therefore,  is  that  WilUam  Tennent, 
graduate  of  Glasgow  University,  drilled  his  students  thoroughly  in  the 
Latin  and  Greek  languages.^  He  led  them  to  an  acquaintance  with 
Hebrew.  He  taught  them  logic  in  such  fashion  that  they  became  master- 
ful debaters.  He  gave  them  a  passion  for  theological  study.  The  very 
atmosphere  of  the  Log  College  was  one  of  enthusiasm.  But  there  were 
limitations  in  a  school  taught  by  one  man  who  had  received  his  own 
education  many  years  before.  Only  for  a  little  time  did  he  have  the 
assistance  of  his  son  Gilbert  as  usher.  Therefore  it  may  be  assumed  that 
the  training  was  less  efficient  in  the  group  of  subjects  embraced  in  the 
term  "philosophy"  than  in  the  studies  intimately  connected  with  the 
practice  of  the  ministerial  profession. 

Such  was  the  training  at  the  Log  College.  As  a  fitting  school  for 
ministers  Whitefield  pronounced  it  distinctly  superior  to  the  con- 
temporary schools  of  New  England  and  Europe.^  When  the  four  sons 
of  Tennent — Gilbert,  William,  John,  and  Charles — and  other  early  stu- 
dents, who  were  almost  sons  of  the  household  by  adoption,  were  suc- 
cessively admitted  to  the  ministry,  the  older  ministers,  educated  abroad 
or  in  New  England,  must  have  remarked  the  absence  of  that  dignified 
carriage  and  poUshed  manner  which  were  then  the  badge  of  their  order. 
Yet  these  young  men  were  admirably  trained,  as  has  been  described,  and 
they  felt  themselves  commissioned  to  propagate  the  warm  type  of  religion 
which  had  been  cultivated  in  their  home.  We  are  now  to  trace  the  actual 
beginning  of  the  revival  under  their  ministry. 

When  Gilbert  Tennent  began  his  work  at  New  Brunswick  in  1726 
Domine  Frelinghuysen  was  doubtful  of  the  expediency  of  his  own  people 
encouraging  this  English  preaching,  since  Joseph  Morgan,  an  opposer 
of  evangelistic  methods,  was  one  of  the  ministers  who  laid  hands  upon 
the  young  candidate.  The  effort  of  the  new  preacher  at  first  was  to 
build  up  a  congregation  and  to  commend  his  church  and  his  person  to 
the  favor  of  the  English-speaking  people.  His  success  in  this  was  such 
that  both  the  pious  and  the  profane  delighted  in  his  sermons  and  in  his 
intercourse  with  them.^ 

Then  he  was  taken  ill  and  lamented  the  barrenness  of  his  ministry, 
comparing  it  with  the  success  of  the  domine.     He  received  a  letter 

'  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  p.  20. 

*  Whitefield,  Journal,  for  November  22,  1739. 

3  Finley,  op.  cit.,  Appendix. 


THE  TENNENTS  AND  THE  PRESBYTERIANS  31 

from  Frelinghuysen  that  excited  him  to  greater  earnestness  and  to  the 
adoption  of  the  domine's  method  of  preaching/  When  he  resumed  his 
work,  therefore,  he  directed  his  message  so  pointedly  to  each  class  among 
his  hearers  that  every  person  imagined  that  he  heard  his  own  case 
described.  No  longer  did  the  speaker  restrain  his  emotions;  he  gave 
uncurbed  expression  to  them.  Indeed,  like  Frehnghuysen,  upon  occasion 
he  could  pour  the  vials  of  vituperation  upon  the  heads  of  opposers.  He 
passed  beyond  the  domine  in  his  vivid  portrayal  of  threatened  doom. 
Some  left  his  preaching  with  disgust.  They  charged  him  with  blas- 
phemy, "as  assuming  the  divine  prerogative  of  being  a  searcher  of  hearts, 
and  pretending  to  know,  by  seeing  a  man's  face,  whether  he  would  be 
saved  or  damned."^  The  Dutch  complainants  reported  to  classis  that 
even  the  English  leader  who  had  approached  them  for  their  subscriptions 
had  himself  become  displeased  and  now  had  nothing  more  to  do  with 
Tennent.3  A  greater  number  of  his  hearers  were  sobered  by  the  new 
earnestness  of  their  preacher,  and  many,  though  few  at  a  time,  experi- 
enced the  change  by  which  religion  became  the  dominant  force  in  their 
lives.  Indeed  there  were  seasons  when  feeling  was  so  general  and  strong 
that  some  "were  compelled  to  cry  out  in  the  public  assembly,  both  under 
the  impression  of  terror  and  love."''  This  phenomenon  occurred  at  New 
Brunswick  and  other  preaching  stations,  but  it  was  most  marked  on 
Staten  Island  about  the  year  1729. 

It  was  a  Uttle  more  than  three  years  after  Gilbert  Tennent  began 
to  gather  the  varied  elements  of  his  congregation  that  John  Tennent 
came  to  a  long-established  Scotch  congregation.  John  was  hcensed  in 
the  autumn  of  1729  and  with  the  leave  of  the  presbytery  of  Philadelphia 
preached  a  few  Sabbaths  at  Freehold,  New  Jersey.  He  found  the  con- 
gregation in  such  a  distracted  condition  that  it  was  thought  that  there 
could  never  be  agreement  upon  the  settlement  of  another  pastor.s 
Yet  the  young  licentiate  told  the  members  that  "if  they  called  him  he 
would  settle  among  them,  albeit  he  should  be  put  to  beg  his  bread  by  so 
doing. "^    His  frankness  and  engaging  manners  won  him  a  unanimous 

'  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  293. 

'  Finley,  op.  cit.,  Appendix. 

i  Ecclesiastical  Records  of  the  Stale  of  New  York,  p.  2589. 

*  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  295. 

5  Joseph  Morgan  had  been  pastor  of  this  church,  though  giving  the  greater  part 
of  his  time  to  Dutch  churches.  He  was  an  opposer  of  Frelinghuysen.  He  was  now 
pastor  at  Maidenhead. 

*  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  300. 


32      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

call,  though  his  people  well  understood  his  adherence  to  the  evangelical 
doctrines  which  Morgan,  his  predecessor,  had  ridiculed.^ 

The  preaching  of  John  Tennent  was  vibrant  with  emotion,  but  while 
his  brother  Gilbert  overwhelmed  his  hearers  with  the  threat  of  doom, 
John's  voice  was  mellowed  by  a  sense  of  the  divine  pity.  People  of 
every  sort  flocked  to  hear  him.  While  the  great  majority  did  not  accept 
his  teaching  upon  the  necessity  of  regeneration,  at  least  of  regeneration 
as  he  defined  it,  religious  discussion  became  general.  Bible  study 
was  widely  practiced,  and  there  was  a  perceptible  alteration  in  the  moral 
conduct  of  the  people.  He  wept  over  his  sermons  in  their  preparation, 
and  frequently  their  delivery  moved  the  whole  congregation  to  tears. 
It  was  no  uncommon  thing  to  see  persons  sobbing  as  if  their  hearts  would 
break,  and  there  were  instances  of  people  being  carried  out  quite  over- 
come. Yet  there  was  no  crying  out,  as  had  been  the  case  under  the 
preaching  of  Gilbert  Tennent.^ 

The  affectionate  regard  of  the  people  for  their  young  minister  waxed 
the  warmer  as  they  saw  him  failing  in  health.  His  brother  William, 
who  was  older  than  John,  but  did  not  so  soon  finish  his  studies,  came  to 
preach  in  his  stead  for  the  last  six  months  of  his  life.  The  old  father 
came  to  deliver  what  was  almost  a  funeral  sermon  a  little  more  than  a 
month  before  the  young  man  died.  The  text  of  that  sermon  compares 
human  life  with  the  grass  which  flourishes  in  the  morning  but  in  the 
evening  is  cut  down  and  withers.^  John  Tennent  died  in  April,  1732. 
Before  that  date  there  were  many  conversions,  but  for  some  months 
after  his  death  the  number  was  much  larger  than  at  any  time  during 
his  life.'' 

William  Tennent,  Jr.,  was  admirably  fitted  to  continue  the  work  of 
his  brother,  for  he  too  was  a  mystic.s  The  spell  of  his  recent  trance  was 
upon  him.  He  was  not  aggressive  and  combative,  like  Gilbert,  but 
retiring.  He  would  have  preferred  to  weep  and  pray  in  some  lodge  in 
the  wilderness  rather  than  to  contend  with  opposition.  Yet  his  influ- 
ence was  powerful  and  wholesome.     The  reformation  at  Freehold  was 

'  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  135. 
*  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  300. 

'MS  sermon  of  W.  Tennent,  Sr.,  March  13,  1731,  in  Presbyterian  Historical 
Society  Library. 

4  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  301. 

5  Not  that  he  was  a  member  of  a  mystical  order  or  adherent  of  a  mystical  phi- 
losophy, but  that  the  mystical  element,  strong  in  all  Pietists  and  revivalists,  was 
especially  pronounced  in  him. 


THE  TENNENTS  AND  THE  PRESBYTERIANS  33 

permanent.  William  Tennent  lived  to  become  the  Nestor  of  his  denomi- 
nation. The  church  in  which  he  preached  and  which  to-day  is  affec- 
tionately called  "Old  Tennents"  has  become  the  Presbyterian  pilgrim 
shrine  of  New  Jersey. 

Gradually  there  settled  on  every  side  of  New  Brunswick  ministers 
who,  like  Gilbert  Tennent,  were  actively  devoted  to  evangelism.  John 
Cross,  a  Scotchman,  was  at  Basking  Ridge,  in  the  upland  country  north 
of  the  Raritan  Valley,  called  "the  mountain  back  of  Newark."  He  led 
a  remarkable  revival  in  1734  and  1735.  Three  hundred  conversions  were 
reported.^  His  influence  was  great  in  that  extensive  region,  and  he  was 
much  in  demand  as  an  itinerant  evangelist.  Unfortunately  he  held 
antinomian  principles,  valuing  religious  emotion  for  its  own  sake,  apart 
from  its  connection  with  moral  renovation.'  In  1734  Samuel  Blair,  one 
of  the  brightest  lights  of  the  Log  College,  settled  at  Shrewsbury  and 
served  a  number  of  scattered  congregations.  Eleazer  Wales,  a  Yale 
graduate,  came  to  New  Jersey  about  1730  and  settled  at  Kingston,  on 
the  Millstone,  a  tributary  of  the  Raritan,  in  1735.  He  was  a  faithful 
supporter  of  the  evangelical  movement.  Thus  the  three  Log  College 
men  with  Cross  and  Wales  constituted  a  radical  party,  while  the  pastors 
of  churches  of  New  England  origin  in  the  older  section  of  New  Jersey, 
led  by  Dickinson,  though  evangelical  in  sentiment,  were  not  yet  drawn 
into  this  active  movement.  The  natural  line  of  cleavage  was  followed 
when  in  1738  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick  was  erected  with  these 
five  ministers  as  members.^ 

Thus  in  1738  the  ministers  who  were  actually  engaged  in  the  propa- 
gation of  a  revival,  and  who,  themselves  thoroughly  aroused,  were  trying 
to  awaken  their  brethren,  were  few.  They  were  mostly  confined  to  the 
little  group  which  was  led  by  Gilbert  Tennent  and  was  erected  by  the 
synod  into  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick.  These  zealous  revivalists 
possessed  in  the  Log  College,  though  Neshaminy  was  within  the  bounds 
of  the  presbytery  of  Philadelphia,  not  only  a  school  where  young  candi- 
dates were  given  a  splendid  intellectual  training,  but  a  school  where 

'  This  incident  is  remarkable,  not  for  the  number  of  conversions,  but  that  any 
number  at  all  is  given.  It  was  not  the  custom  of  Whitefield  or  of  the  various  pastors 
who  published  detailed  reports  of  the  course  of  the  revival  in  their  congregations  to 
state  the  number  of  conversions.  Any  estimate,  therefore,  of  the  number  of  conver- 
sions in  the  Great  Awakening  is  a  mere  guess,  which  I  refrain  from  making.  White- 
field,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  41. 

^This  led  to  his  undoing  and  suspension  by  the  presbytery  in  1742.  Webster, 
op.  ciL,  p.  414. 

3  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  136. 


34      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

their  enthusiasm  for  the  revival  was  fanned  to  white  heat.  And  now 
they  had  been  regularly  constituted  a  presbytery,  the  immemorial  privi- 
lege of  which,  according  to  the  Directory,  was  the  licensing  and  ordaining 
of  candidates  suitably  prepared.^  It  was  for  this  that  they  desired  to 
be  made  a  presbytery.^ 

The  privilege  of  examining  and  ordaining  young  men  prepared  at  the 
Log  College,  which  was  given  by  the  institution  of  the  presbytery  of 
New  Brunswick,  was  in  effect  withdrawn  at  the  same  meeting  of  the 
synod  by  the  adoption  of  an  overture  proposed  by  the  presbytery  of 
Lewes.3  This  was  a  small  body  of  small  men.  The  lack  of  university 
opportunities  and  of  skilled  professors  within  the  bounds  of  the  synod 
was  held  forth  at  great  length,  with  never  a  word  of  appreciation  of  the 
singularly  gifted  teacher,  William  Tennent,  who  was  at  that  moment 
training  a  band  of  promising  young  men  at  the  Log  College.  The 
implication  was  that  the  men  already  admitted  to  the  ministry  from  that 
school  were  insufficiently  qualified.  Yet  there  was  not  a  minister 
among  the  conservatives,  except  Francis  Alison,  whose  scholarly  attain- 
ments equaled  those  of  Samuel  Blair.  There  was  not  another  man  in 
the  synod  who  developed  the  pulpit  power  of  Gilbert  Tennent  or  who 
could  show  the  success  in  the  ministry  of  WilKam  Tennent,  Jr. 

By  the  new  regulation  presbyteries  were  permitted  to  examine  and 
ordain  candidates  who  produced  the  diplomas  of  New  England  or  Euro- 
pean colleges.  But  candidates  without  such  diplomas  were  to  be  previ- 
ously examined  by  a  committee  of  the  synod,  and  the  certificates  of  such 
committee  were  to  be  presented  to  the  presbytery  in  lieu  of  diplomas. 
The  unfriendliness  of  the  measure  to  the  Log  College  was  further  shown 
in  the  personnel  of  the  two  examining  committees.  College  professors 
had  a  voice  in  the  granting  of  diplomas  to  their  students,  but  William 
Tennent  was  not  recognized  so  far  as  to  be  appointed  on  either  of  the 
committees.'' 

The  animus  of  this  legislation  is  made  the  clearer  by  other  acts  of  this 
same  year  and  the  year  before,  framed  to  hold  in  check  the  young 
evangelists  prepared  at  the  Log  College.  It  was  enacted  that  no  pro- 
bationer should  supply  any  vacancy  without  the  permission  both  of 
the  presbytery  to  which  he  belonged  and  of  the  presbytery  to  which  the 
congregation  belonged.^    Neither  was  an  ordained  minister,  although 

^  Confessions  of  Faith,  p.  179. 

'  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  44. 

'  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  139. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  140.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  133. 


THE  TENNENTS  AND  THE  PRESBYTERIANS  35 

a  member  of  the  synod,  permitted  to  supply  any  congregation  not  belong- 
ing to  his  presbytery,  if  a  single  minister  of  the  presbytery  to  which  the 
congregation  belonged  protested.  It  mattered  not  whether  he  came 
upon  the  invitation  of  a  vacant  congregation  or  of  a  settled  pastor;  it 
was  in  the  power  of  a  single  opposer  of  the  revival  to  forbid  such  service 
until  the  presbytery  or  synod  gave  its  permission.'  It  was  hostility  to 
the  Log  College  and  to  the  militant  evangelism  cultivated  there  that 
caused  the  enactment  of  these  laws.  No  wonder  that  Gilbert  Tennent 
cried  out  in  one  of  the  meetings  that  the  synod  aimed  "to  prevent  his 
father's  school  from  training  gracious  men  for  the  ministry."^ 

It  is  a  surprise,  therefore,  upon  turning  the  yellow  pages  of  the 
treasured  minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick  presbytery  to  find  how  evident 
was  the  purpose  that  every  action,  taken  only  after  prayerful  deliberation, 
should  conform  to  order  and  precedent.  Frequent  meetings  were  held 
in  widely  separated  places.  Though  each  pastor  was  more  or  less  of 
an  itinerant  locally,  he  was  assigned  in  addition  long  preaching  tours  to 
destitute  congregations  and  new  settlements — all  within  the  bounds  of 
the  presbytery.  These  men  v/ere  too  busy  to  intrude  upon  other 
pastors,  but  at  their  first  meeting  they  licensed  John  Rowland,  who  had 
finished  his  course  of  study  at  the  Log  College,  and  in  due  time  they 
ordained  him,  just  as  they  did  many  others  in  the  succeeding  years,  all 
in  defiance  of  the  law  of  the  synod  forbidding  such  licensure  and  ordina- 
tion.^ They  fell  back  upon  the  arguments  of  Jonathan  Dickinson,  leader 
of  the  New  Englanders  in  the  synod,  presented  in  1722  and  1729.  Christ 
is  the  lawmaker;  the  New  Testament  is  the  law.  Presbyterian  direc- 
tories and  accredited  writers  have  all  along  defended  this  right  of  presby- 
teries to  examine  and  ordain  candidates  by  appeal  to  the  Scriptures. 
When  the  synod  attempts  to  deprive  a  presbytery  of  this  right  it  exercises 
a  legislative  power  which  it  disclaimed  in  1729,  and  which  the  presbytery 
of  New  Brunswick  refuses  to  concede  to  it.  Indeed  this  power,  they 
think,  opens  the  door  to  intolerable  bondage.  The  other  act  of  1738 
was,  in  their  view,  uncharitable  and  gave  a  commission  to  every  membe 
of  a  presbytery  to  play  the  tyrant.^ 

Not  only  did  they  license  and  ultimately  ordain  John  Rowland, 
a  man  of  extraordinary  power,  but  they  recommended  his  acceptance 

'  Ibid.,  p.  136.  '  Ibid.,  p.  185. 

3  Yet  there  was  unusual  deliberation  with  adjournments.  MS  Minutes  of  the 
New  Brunswick  Presbytery  for  August  8,  1738;  September  5,  1739;  and  October  11, 
1739- 

*  Hodge,  op.  cit..  Part  II,  pp.  104-8;  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  144. 


36      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  TEE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

of  the  invitation  of  the  New  Side  churches  of  Maidenhead  and  Hopewell. 
These  towns  were  just  outside  the  bounds  of  the  New  Brunswick  presby- 
tery. The  former  pastor,  Morgan,  an  opposer  of  the  revival,  had  been 
suspended  by  the  synod  for  drunkenness.  There  was  a  separation  of 
evangelicals  and  conservatives.  The  former  were  erected  by  the  presby- 
tery of  Philadelphia  into  separate  congregations  with  liberty  "to  invite 
any  regular  candidate  from  other  parts  to  preach  among  them."  If 
the  regulation  of  the  synod  requiring  previous  examination  by  its  com- 
mittee was  beyond  the  competency  of  the  synod  there  was  no  irregularity 
in  Rowland's  acceptance  of  the  invitation  of  these  neighboring  churches, 
but  if  the  first-named  action  of  the  synod  was  constitutional  Rowland 
was  guilty  of  intrusion.' 

To  observe  the  course  of  the  revival  at  Maidenhead,  Hopewell, 
and  Amwell^  apart  from  the  contest  over  Rowland's  entrance  into  the 
ministry  it  is  necessary  to  return  to  the  time  of  his  Ucensure.  A  rural 
community  sharply  divided  into  two  factions,  each  served  by  a  young 
licentiate,  was  not  the  probable  scene  of  a  helpful  quickening  of  the 
religious  life.  Yet  there  was  an  awakening  in  these  three  townships 
quite  as  remarkable  as  the  earlier  reformations  at  New  Brunswick, 
Freehold,  and  Basking  Ridge.  Mr.  Gould,  the  minister-elect  of  the 
conservatives,  was  a  quiet,  conciliatory  man,  under  whom  the  New 
Sides  and  Old  Sides  ultimately  united.  It  was  a  pity  that  the  Presby- 
terians of  the  three  towns  did  not  unite  under  the  two  men  whose  gifts 
were  complementary,  but  in  1738  the  division  of  sentiment  among  the 
people  did  not  permit  of  this,  and  the  alleged  irregularity  of  Rowland's 
license  was  a  barrier.  At  first  Rowland  was  denied  the  use  of  the 
meeting-houses  at  Maidenhead  and  Hopewell,  and,  like  Frelinghuysen 
before  him,  he  preached  in  barns.  So  great  were  the  congregations 
that  the  largest  barns  of  his  adherents  were  required.  Later  he  was 
granted  the  use  of  the  meeting-house  at  Maidenhead,  and  a  new  one 
was  built  in  the  township  of  Hopewell.  At  Amwell  he  did  not  meet 
with  organized  opposition,  but,  though  he  found  the  people  agreeable, 
few  in  the  beginning  were  deeply  interested  in  religion. ^ 

The  debate  among  the  people  was  quickly  turned  from  the  knotty 
problems  of  ecclesiastical  law  and  the  unfortunate  division  in  the  com- 

'  Hale,  A  History  of  the  Old  Presbyterian  Congregations  of  ...  .  Maidenhead  and 
Hopewell,  pp.  56,  1 10-12;  Gilbert  Tennent,  sermons  on  "The  Solemn  Scene"  and 
on  "Duty"  published  with  Unsearchable  Riches. 

^  Amwell  was  within  the  bounds  of  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick. 

3  Rowland,  A  Narrative  of  the  Revival. 


THE  TENNENTS  AND  THE  PRESBYTERIANS  37 

munity  to  the  deeper  question  of  personal  relation  to  God.  For  six 
long  months  Rowland  with  terrible  earnestness  preached  upon  the  two 
themes,  conviction  and  conversion.  The  most  arousing  texts  were 
selected.  Though  he  divided  his  ministry  among  three  townships,  the 
interest  was  not  permitted  to  subside  by  long  intervals  between  meet- 
ings in  one  neighborhood,  Sunday-night  meetings  were  introduced,  a 
marked  innovation  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  week-day  meetings, 
so  that  the  young  enthusiast  was  constantly  going  from  one  service  to 
another.  Presently  the  one  topic  of  conversation  in  these  towns  was 
heart  religion.  Everyone  was  asking  himself  whether  he  was  really 
converted.  A  deep  gloom  began  to  settle  over  the  three  New  Side  con- 
gregations. Now  one  person  and  now  another  broke  down  and  owned 
himself  convicted.  Yet  the  months  passed,  and  the  prophet  of  woe  but 
increased  their  anguish  by  his  arraignment  of  sin  and  declaration  of  the 
divine  displeasure.' 

Finally,  when  the  number  of  the  convicted  was  very  considerable, 
and  the  people  who  looked  upon  themselves  as  converted  were  aroused 
to  earnest  effort  in  their  behalf,  the  preacher  changed  his  method.  The 
most  inviting  and  encouraging  subjects  were  taken.  The  eye  that  had 
flashed  with  the  anger  of  God  was  now  a  well  of  tears.  Solemn  weeping 
came  over  the  congregation.  From  this  time  on  conversions  were  more 
numerous.  Sometimes  it  was  the  aged  to  whom  the  joy  of  pardon 
came,  and  sometimes  it  was  the  children.  The  negroes  were  included  in 
the  invitation,  and  Rowland  reports  that  some  were  very  earnest  after  the 
word.  Kindly  Christian  fellowship  found  new  ways  of  expression  in  the 
three  congregations.  The  little  differences  which  often  trouble  good 
people  were  practically  unknown  among  them.^ 

The  movement  spread  beyond  the  circle  of  families  which  originally 
composed  the  three  New  Side  congregations.  While  Rowland  does  not 
report  the  conversion  of  any  who  at  first  opposed  the  revival,  many  who 
had  been  quite  indifferent  to  the  claims  of  reUgion  were  reached.  Again 
there  were  some  who  were  little  affected  by  the  doctrine  of  the  new  birth 
when  it  was  first  preached  among  them,  but  who  three  years  later  were 
visibly  affected.  There  were  striking  illustrations  of  the  power  of  Row- 
land's preaching.  At  one  meeting  in  1739,  just  before  the  arrival  of 
Whitefield,  only  fifteen  persons  were  present,  owing  to  an  insufficient 
"warning,"  as  the  circulation  of  an  invitation  in  a  neighborhood  was 
called.  Not  being  dependent  upon  the  number  of  his  listeners,  he  was 
carried  quite  out  of  himself  by  the  awful  purport  of  his  message,  when 

'  Ihid.  '  Ibid. 


38      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  TEE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

suddenly  he  was  compelled  to  stop  by  the  outcries  of  his  hearers.  Sur- 
prised, he  asked  why  they  cried  out  in  such  a  manner.  The  answer 
of  some  was  "that  they  saw  hell  opening  before  them,  and  them- 
selves ready  to  fall  into  it."  The  most  remarkable  outbursts  of 
feeling  were  in  spontaneous  gatherings  in  private  houses.  Some  of 
the  largest  accessions  were  in  1740,  when  the  movement,  so  far  as  con- 
versions were  concerned,  had  apparently  spent  itself  for  lack  of  new 
material.  Rowland  reports  that  sometimes  when  he  cast  the  gospel  net 
many  slipped  out  as  soon  as  they  were  caught.  Yet  of  the  multitude 
that  gave  evidence  of  conversion  no  considerable  number  were  reckoned  as 
backsliders  in  after-times  when  the  period  of  stress  had  given  place  to 
the  ordinary  routine  of  life  and  feeUng.^ 

From  the  foregoing  account  two  characteristics  of  the  Presbyterian 
revival  in  New  Jersey  must  have  been  noted  by  the  reader.  The  first 
is  that  the  conservative  majority  in  control  of  the  church,  centering  at 
Philadelphia  but  strongest  on  the  frontier  of  Pennsylvania,  aimed  to 
restrict  the  troublesome  promoters  of  strenuous  religion  to  a  sharply 
defined  territory  in  New  Jersey  and  to  cripple  their  power  of  action 
even  within  that  territory.  The  second  characteristic  is  that  the  revival 
fire  did  not  leap  from  town  to  town  and  rapidly  envelop  a  wide  stretch 
of  country  in  a  general  conflagration,  as  in  the  New  England  revival  of 
1734.  The  Edwards  revival  of  1734  spread  throughout  western  Massa- 
chusetts and  the  adjoining  colony  of  Connecticut,  and  in  its  special 
phenomena  came  to  an  end.  It  was  so  like  the  larger  movement  of 
1740  that  it  is  often  represented  as  the  beginning  of  the  Great  Awakening. 
The  revivals  in  New  Brunswick  and  Freehold  were  earlier  than  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Edwards  revival  at  Northampton,  but  the  fire  was  not  imme- 
diately carried  to  neighboring  settlements.  The  diversities  among  the 
people  in  blood  and  sentiment  and  their  less  compact  organization  were 
obstacles  to  a  movement  like  that  in  western  Massachusetts.  Never- 
theless the  several  revivals  which  have  been  traced  in  this  chapter  were 
parts  of  a  whole,  for  the  promoters  of  them  acted  in  close  co-operation, 
and  the  reports  of  startling  events  in  one  town  stimulated  the  desire  of 
the  pious  in  other  towns  for  a  like  spiritual  rejuvenation. 

It  was  the  common  appreciation  of  the  power  of  publicity  that  sug- 
gests another  comparison  of  the  Freehold  awakening  of  1732  with  the 
Northampton  awakening  of  1 734.  The  Edwards  revival  had  widespread 
influence  in  America  and  abroad  through  the  printed  reports  which  were 
given  to  the  public,  but  Gilbert  Tennent  was  also  prompt  in  summoning 

'  Rowland,  A  Narrative  of  the  Revival. 


THE  TENNENTS  AND  THE  PRESBYTERIANS  39 

the  printing-press  to  his  aid.  In  1734  he  sent  to  the  press  the  two  ser- 
mons of  his  brother  John  on  regeneration  and  adoption,  with  a  bio- 
graphical sketch  of  their  author.  In  1735  he  pubhshed  at  Boston  a 
"  Solemn  Warning,"  based  on  fear,  and  strongly  justified  his  method  in  an 
introduction.  This  discourse  was  terrifying  in  its  denunciation  of  sin 
and  threat  of  judgment.  He  also  pubUshed  that  year  *'  An  Expostulatory 
Address,"  which  was  based  upon  the  complementary  idea  of  the  winning 
power  of  divine  love.  Here  he  applied  the  method  of  persuasion  so 
successfully  employed  at  Freehold.  In  this  discourse,  with  abandonment 
of  restraint,  he  revealed  that  warmth  of  sympathy  which  so  endeared  him 
to  his  friends.  This  address  and  the  sermons  of  John  Tennent  were 
pubUshed  in  London  in  1741  under  the  patronage  of  Whitefield.  Thus 
the  printed  accounts  of  the  revival  in  New  Jersey  contributed  in  the 
colonies  to  an  expectation  of  an  outburst  of  the  old-time  Puritan  fervor, 
and  in  England  later  the  rough  but  vigorous  words  of  these  Log  College 
men  added  force  to  a  movement  already  begun.  This  expectation  was 
heightened  when  the  report  of  the  work  in  the  Highlands  and  in  the 
three  towns  of  Maidenhead,  Hopewell,  and  Amwell,  so  potent  and  mys- 
terious, was  carried  to  every  quarter.  Above  all,  the  almost  incredible 
stories  of  the  success  of  George  Whitefield  in  the  home  land  gave  promise 
of  a  general  revival.  It  was  a  time  gladdened  by  hope,  and  yet  hope 
tempered  by  dread. 


CHAPTER  IV 

GEORGE  WHITEFIELD,  AND   HIS  ALLIANCE  WITH  THE  NEW 
BRUNSWICK  PRESBYTERIANS 

Three  contributory  streams  have  been  traced  to  their  point  of  junc- 
tion. They  have  been  broadly  designated  as  the  German,  Dutch,  and 
Scotch-Irish  contributions  to  the  Great  Awakening.  The  breadth 
and  power  of  these  movements  are  not  to  be  measured  by  the  number 
and  duration  of  such  local  revivals  as  have  been  described.  An  increas- 
ing number  of  people  were  beginning  to  shake  off  the  lethargy  of  their 
times;  they  longed  for  a  religion  of  energy  and  passion.  Hoping,  de- 
spairing, praying,  struggling,  they  measurably  attained  it.  These  were 
the  evangelicals.  Some  of  the  pastors  were  thrilled  by  the  vision  of  a 
new  reformation;  their  very  faces  reflected  the  inner  light.  Here  and 
there  this  growing  interest  became  intense  and  passionate,  attended  by 
numerous  conversions  which  were  often  so  revolutionary  and  extraordi- 
nary that  the  strange  visitation  seemed  miraculous.  The  story  of  each 
community  thus  visited  was  carried  by  the  winds  to  every  quarter, 
stimulating  the  religious  desires  of  thousands,  spurring  evangelical 
pastors  to  greater  earnestness  and  warmth,  and  binding  them  together 
in  close  fraternity.  In  spite  of  the  frowns  of  the  coldly  intellectual, 
still  constituting  a  majority  of  the  church  members,  the  country  was 
ready  to  be  swept  by  a  wave  of  emotionalism,  if  only  a  leader  could  be 
found  who  was  broad  in  sympathy,  deep  in  emotional  experience,  and 
commissioned  by  a  prophet's  gift  of  utterance.  This  leader  was  found 
in  George  Whitefield. 

But  just  as  these  three  streams  were  to  unite  in  a  seething  flood  of 
emotionalism,  a  fourth  source  of  the  Great  Awakening  in  the  Middle 
Colonies  added  its  contribution.  If  this  were  a  study  of  the  whole 
intercolonial  movement,  unquestionably  the  New  England  revival  of 
1734  would  be  considered  as  the  most  important,  though  not  the  earliest, 
of  the  several  contributory  movements.  But  the  Edwards  revival  had 
no  direct  and  immediate  effect  upon  the  Middle  Colonies.  The  Presby- 
terian congregations  of  New  England  origin,  located  mostly  on  Long 
Island  and  in  East  Jersey,  whether  incorporated  with  the  synod  or  still 
independent,  were  for  the  most  part  evangehcal  in  sentiment,  though 

40 


GEORGE  WHITEFIELD  41 

their  pastors  were  not  in  full  harmony  with  the  more  radical  Log  College 
men.  Some  of  these  pastors  had  been  converted  in  the  Edwards  revival, 
and  now,  years  after  that  revival  had  come  to  an  end,  a  very  similar 
religious  interest  began  to  appear  in  their  congregations.  The  most 
important  of  these  local  revivals  was  at  Newark  under  the  pastorate  of 
the  brilliant  Aaron  Burr.'  It  began  in  August,  1739,  and  gathered 
momentum  from  month  to  month.  Other  pastors  in  the  neighborhood 
were  hoping  for  its  spread  to  their  congregations.^  While  these  trans- 
planted New  England  towns  were,  no  doubt,  stirred  by  the  reports  of  the 
renewed  power  of  religion  among  the  various  nationalities  west  of  them, 
the  strongest  incentive  was  their  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  New 
England  awakening  of  1734.  The  Edwards  revival  was  thus  itself 
revived,  and  just  before  the  landing  of  Whitefield  became  one  of  the 
sources  of  the  Great  Awakening  in  this  section  of  the  country. 

While  these  four  religious  movements,  more  or  less  independent  of 
each  other,  were  essentially  parts  of  one  general  and  even  world  move- 
ment, this  was  not  patent  to  all  until  Whitefield  came  as  the  chief  apostle 
of  the  Great  Awakening.  Not  till  then  were  men  everywhere  arrested 
by  the  call  of  the  Spirit.  Not  till  then  did  every  other  issue  pale  in  the 
general  debate  upon  religion.  Furthermore,  not  till  his  coming  was 
a  sustained  interest  manifested  by  the  people  of  one  colony  in  the  course 
of  events,  whether  religious  or  secular,  in  the  sister  colonies,^  but  all 
ears  were  open  for  news  from  "home."  The  newspapers  were  filled 
with  transcripts  from  the  London  papers.  At  this  point  it  will  be  appro- 
priate to  give  an  ampler  representation  than  that  in  the  opening  chapter 
of  the  preparation  for  the  Great  Awakening  made  by  the  newspapers 
through  the  publication  of  startling  accounts  of  Whitefield's  career  before 
he  landed  at  Lewes,  Delaware,  on  October  30,  1739.  These  accounts 
also  give  us  a  fresh  view  of  the  man  who  was  soon  to  electrify  greater 
audiences  than  had  ever  before  gathered  within  the  hearing  of  a  single 
voice  in  the  colonies. 

With  this  twofold  purpose  we  turn  over  the  time-stained  pages  of 
the  colonial  papers.  The  Virginia  Gazette  tells  of  the  great  concourse 
of  people  that  filled  the  church  of  St.  Mary  Magdalene,  London,  long 
before  the  time  of  service,  and  of  several  hundred  persons  in  the  street 
who  in  vain  endeavored  to  force  themselves  into  the  church  and  past  the 
constables  stationed  at  the  door  to  preserve  the  peace.     Such  was  the 

'  Christian  History  for  1743,  p.  252;  Stearns,  Historical  Discourse,  p.  156. 

^Christian  History  for  1743,  p.  254. 

3  Hoskins,  "German  Influence,"  Princeton  Theological  Review  (1907),  pp.  70-73. 


42      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

mad  desire  to  see  and  hear  the  eloquent  youth  who  had  volunteered  to  go 
to  Georgia  as  a  missionary.^  Directly  a  longer  article  appeared  in  the 
Mercury,  published  at  Philadelphia,  stating  the  amounts  of  collections 
for  charity  schools  taken  at  these  services.^  But  a  discordant  note  was 
sounded  when  an  English  paper,  the  Weekly  Miscellany,  began  an  anti- 
Methodistic  campaign  by  the  publication  of  articles  against  enthusiasm. 
Next  there  was  the  announcement  in  the  South  Carolina  Gazette  of  White- 
field's  departure  from  London  on  his  way  to  Georgia.^  The  last-named 
paper  and  all  the  others  to  the  northward  were  strangely  silent  on  his 
movements  in  Georgia,  his  resolution  to  found  an  orphan  house,  even 
his  preaching  in  Charleston  and  his  return  to  England  to  receive  priest's 
orders.  But  when  he  was  once  again  in  England  the  papers  from  end 
to  end  of  the  colonies  were  filled  with  reports  of  his  phenomenal  career. 
It  was  these  later  reports  especially  that  excited  curiosity  to  hear 
him  and  fanned  the  hopes  of  the  pious  when  it  was  learned  that  he  was 
about  to  visit  the  Middle  Colonies,  He  was  ordained  at  Oxford  on 
January  14,  1739,''  and  sailed  for  America  on  August  14,  following.  In 
the  interval  he  journeyed  about  England  in  the  interest  of  his  projected 
orphan  house,  but  it  very  soon  developed  that  his  peculiar  calling  was 
that  of  an  evangelist.  The  papers  had  told  of  riots  among  the  colliers 
at  Bristol  consequent  upon  a  reduction  of  their  wages  from  sixteen 
pence  to  a  shilling.^  Some  months  after  these  riots  Whitefield  visited 
Bristol  and,  being  refused  the  churches,  preached  in  the  open  to  these 
abused,  besotted  colliers.^  Thus  began  his  famous  field  preaching. 
Sometimes  the  accounts  of  his  movements  were  taken  from  the  London 
papers,  and  sometimes  they  appeared  to  be  summary  reports  sent  directly 
to  America.  Highly  laudatory  verses  were  copied  from  the  Gentleman' s 
MagazineJ  When  Whitefield  had  returned  to  London  from  this  tour 
the  papers  told  of  his  preaching  from  a  tombstone,  for  the  warden  of  a 
church  in  which  he  had  been  invited  by  the  vicar  to  preach  denied  him 
the  pulpit.*    Then  the  colonial  readers  were  informed  of  his  preaching 

»  Virginia  Gazette,  January  6,  1738. 
'American  Weekly  Mercury,  January  24,  1738. 

3  South  Carolina  Gazette,  May  4,  1 738. 

4  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  3,  p.  9. 

s  New  York  Gazette,  February  27,  1739. 
^  Ibid.,  May  7,  1739. 

">  American  Weekly  Mercury,  June  21,  1739. 
*  Boston  Gazette,  Jime  25,  1739. 


GEORGE  WHITEFIELD  43 

to  twenty  thousand  people  and  even  to  fifty  thousand  on  Kensington 
Common  and  at  Moorfields.' 

According  to  some  of  the  accounts  his  preaching  had  become  an 
offense  to  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England,^  but  a  dissenter  wrote  to 
his  ministerial  friend  in  the  colonies  of  these  Methodists  as  providentially 
raised  up  to  lead  a  reformation  from  profaneness  to  piety.^  Indeed 
already  the  face  of  things  had  been  changed  in  parts  of  Wales  through 
the  efforts  of  men  of  a  spirit  kindred  to  Whitefield's.  The  simple  but 
fundamental  doctrines  into  which  he  breathed  the  spirit  of  life  the 
descendants  of  the  Puritans  read  in  their  century-old  books.  His 
fidelity  to  the  articles  of  his  church,  which  were  Calvinistic  in  character, 
and  the  closing  of  pulpits  against  him  by  his  brethren  commended  the 
evangelist  not  a  little  to  pious  dissenters  in  the  colonies. 

When  Whitefield  landed  in  Delaware  in  1739  on  his  way  to  Georgia 
he  came  with  certain  prepossessions  which  greatly  affected  his  ministry. 
The  first  of  these  was  a  spirit  of  censoriousness,  a  disposition  to  judge  his 
critics  rashly.  This  was  due  to  the  pecuhar  experiences  of  his  brief 
career  and  was  foreign  to  his  generous  nature.  Therefore  a  larger 
experience  in  the  world  corrected  this  tendency  in  a  very  few  years,'' 
but  the  wild-fire  by  that  time  had  spread,  so  that  from  his  day  to  the 
present  censoriousness  has  been  the  fault  in  a  class  of  itinerant  evangehsts 
whose  influence  in  other  respects  has  been  good.s 

A  glance  at  these  experiences  easily  accounts  for  this  unfortunate 
habit.  As  a  member  of  the  Holy  Club  at  Oxford  he  came  to  look  upon 
himself  and  his  Methodist  associates  as  a  band  of  faithful  disciples 

'  South  Carolina  Gazette,  September  i,  1739.  WTien  Whitefield  was  preaching  to 
a  great  throng  in  Philadelphia  from  the  court-house  steps  Franklin  walked  down  the 
street  "till  the  speaker's  voice  was  obscured  by  the  noise  of  the  street."  Then  imagin- 
ing a  semicircle,  filled  with  auditors,  to  each  one  of  whom  he  allowed  two  square  feet, 
he  computed  that  more  than  thirty  thousand  could  hear  the  preacher,  so  loud  and 
clear  was  his  voice  and  so  perfectly  articulated  were  his  words.  This  reconciled  Frank- 
lin to  the  newspaper  accounts  of  Whitefield's  preaching  in  England.  Franklin, 
Autobiography,  pp.  132,  133. 

'New  York  Gazette,  November  19,  1739. 

^'Qoston  News-Letter,  November  15,  1739. 

*  Whitefield,  Some  Remarks  on  a  Pamphlet  entitled,  The  Enthusiasm  of  Methodists 
and  Papists  compared,  pp.  14,  16. 

s  The  writer  in  his  own  ministry  has  had  experience  with  evangelists  of  this  type 
and  in  his  studies  has  found  them  appearing  in  every  period.  As  WTiitefield  was  the 
greatest  evangelist  of  the  eighteenth  century  his  faults  as  well  as  his  virtues  were  imi- 
tated. 


44      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

persecuted  and  held  in  scorn  by  a  multitude  of  nominal  Christians.* 
Ministers  called  him  an  enthusiast.  His  first  journals,  which  he  had 
sent  home  from  Georgia,  were,  contrary  to  his  directions,  published  with- 
out editing.^  Therefore  the  private  thoughts  of  an  ardent  youth  con- 
cerning his  elders  in  the  ministry,  mentioning  them  by  name,  were 
published  to  the  world.  His  journals  were  immensely  popular  and  went 
through  many  editions.  Though  he  was  more  circumspect  in  later 
numbers,  it  was  impossible  not  to  offend.  Then  returning  to  England 
he  was  greeted  by  a  fierce  storm  of  opposition.  Mobs  were  set  upon  him. 
Yet  the  people  hung  on  his  words,  and  strong  hearts  were  melted  by  his 
ministry.  He  came  into  friendly  relations  with  Griffith  Jones  and  Howell 
Harris,  who  had  brought  reformation  to  Wales  in  spite  of  years  of  liti- 
gation and  persecution  by  the  clergy .^  Whitefield  concluded  that  the 
possessors  of  genuine  piety  in  his  own  church  were  but  a  remnant.'' 

He  had  but  little  reason  to  think  better  of  non-conformists.  Though 
he  was  taunted  with  being  a  dissenter,^  most  dissenters  in  his  country 
held  aloof  from  him,  unable  to  overcome  their  prejudices  and  fearful 
of  the  effects  of  his  untempered  zeal.  He  was  a  correspondent  of  the 
Erskines  in  Scotland.  Their  expulsion  by  a  corrupt  majority  in  tempo- 
rary control  of  the  general  assembly  but  confirmed  his  opinion,  common 
with  the  aggressive  promoters  of  vital  rehgion,  that  the  body  of  the 
ministry  in  all  lands  was  unconverted.^  The  battles  forced  upon  the 
pacific  Spener  in  Germany  and  upon  his  successor,  Francke,  were  addi- 
tional evidences.  Therefore  he  came  to  the  colonies  prepared  to  accept 
the  opinion  of  Frelinghuysen  and  the  Tennents  concerning  the  major- 
ity of  ministers  of  all  denominations  in  the  American  possessions. 

Thus  Whitefield  was  predisposed  to  give  hearty  support  only  to  men 
who  like  himself  advocated  a  religion  of  energy  and  passion;  further- 
more he  liked  such  men  the  better  if  they  were  Calvinists  in  their  religious 
philosophy,  for  when  he  landed  at  Lewes  he  was  already  a  Calvinist. 
Before  his  ordination  as  deacon  he  thoroughly  compared  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles  with  Scripture,  verifying  them,  in  his  opinion,  and  therefore  in 
subscribing  to  them  he  gave  unqualified  assent  to  their  truth.^  Though 
his  study  at  first  was  almost  entirely  in  pietistic  literature,  his  interest 

^  Whitefield,  Brief  Account,  p.  26, 

'  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  2,  Preface. 

3  Tyerman,  Wesley,  I,  221. 

<  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  3,  pp.  75,  109.  ^  Ibid.,p.  S9- 

'  Ibid.,  p.  97;  Gledstone,  George  Whitefield,  p.  97. 

7  Whitefield,  Brief  Account,  p.  56. 


GEORGE  WHITEFIELD  45 

being  in  regeneration  and  conversion,  it  was  inevitable  that  he  should  be 
drawn  on  to  "the  whole  counsel  of  God,"  as  he  expressed  it.'  His 
intimacy  with  Howell  Harris  stimulated  this  tendency.  On  Whitefield's 
voyage  across  the  Atlantic  in  1739  he  gave  attentive  reading  to  Calvin- 
istic  attacks  upon  Arminianism.^  These  studies  tended  to  hasten  his 
rupture  with  churchmen  in  America  and  to  win  the  favor  of  the  more 
numerous  dissenters.  An  itinerant  missionary  who  preached  with 
Whitefield  in  Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  during  his  first  visit  taunted 
him  with  making  man  a  machine.^  Nevertheless  there  were  many 
expressions  in  his  journals  and  printed  sermons  which  were  open  to 
criticism  by  strict  Calvinists.*  He  had  been  deeply  influenced  by 
German  mystics  and  Moravians,  though  escaping  some  of  their  practices 
which  were  freely  adopted  by  John  Wesley. 

In  spite  of  his  gradually  stiffening  Calvinism  a  marked  characteristic 
of  Whitefield  was  his  catholic  spirit.  It  is  true  that  in  general  evangeli- 
cals as  compared  with  conservatives  had  little  denominational  prejudice, 
but  Whitefield  was  extraordinary  in  his  sympathetic  attitude  toward 
Christians  of  all  names  who  were  promoters  of  vital  religion.  On  his 
voyage  to  America  in  1739  he  even  lent  his  cabin  to  a  Quaker  preacher, 
who  held  meetings  there.  Whitefield  consented  freely  to  the  Friend's 
teaching  upon  the  Christ  within  but  regretted  his  slight  of  the  objective 
Christ  and  the  ordinances  instituted  by  him.s  Then  too  Whitefield 
had  spent  pleasant  hours  of  Christian  conference  with  Baptists,  though  he 
himself  held  the  Episcopal  theory  of  ordination  and  of  the  real  presence 
of  Christ  in  the  elements  of  the  Lord's  Supper.'^  In  England  he  had 
collected  money  for  the  Lutherans  of  Georgia^  and  enjoyed  fellowship 
with  the  Moravians,  though  his  Calvinism  was  a  barrier  to  the  fullest 
intercourse  with  them.^ 

With  these  predispositions  Whitefield  arrived  at  Lewes.  We  are 
now  to  follow  the  gradual  alignment  of  forces  and  the  marshaling  of  the 
cohorts  of  militant  righteousness.  But  though  Whitefield  believed  him- 
self the  possessor  of  a  prophet's  call  and  knew  full  well  the  power  of  his 
oratory,  he  was,  withal,  a  gentleman  and  entertained  no  purpose  of 
antagonizing  those  who  were  not  in  full  agreement  with  him.     He 

'  Gledstone,  op.  cii.,  p.  116.  ^  WTiitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  19. 

^  New  York  Post-Boy,  January  21,  1745. 

*  Whitefield,  A  Letter  ....  in  Answer  to  ...  .  Querists,  p.  61;  Franklin, 
op.  cit.,  p.  134.  ^ 

5  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  16.  '  Ibid.,  No.  3,  p.  7. 

*  Ibid.,  No.  4,  pp.  7,  12,  24.  8  Ibid.,  No.  3,  p.  97. 


46      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

preached  at  Lewes,  the  adherents  of  various  denominations  attending, 
and  though  the  minister  "subscribed  to  the  articles  of  the  Church  of 
England  in  his  own  sense"  he  opened  his  pulpit  to  Whitefield  then,  and 
again  the  following  year.'  This  was  more  considerate  treatment  than 
he  had  learned  to  expect  in  England.  The  same  privilege  was  accorded 
him  at  Philadelphia  by  Commissary  Cummings.  The  newspapers  record 
that  he  preached  in  Christ  Church  every  day,  "people  of  all  persuasions 
going  to  hear  him."^  A  week  later,  besides  the  morning  service  in  the 
church,  he  added  an  afternoon  service  in  the  open  air.  This  he  excuses 
as  a  concession  to  the  sentiment  of  the  province.  Thereupon  the  papers 
say  that  he  had  begun  "to  preach  from  the  court-house  gallery  at  six  at 
night  to  near  six  thousand  people  before  him  in  the  street,  who  stood  in 
awful  silence  to  hear  him."  He  did  not  make  public  appeals  for  gifts 
toward  the  building  of  his  orphan  house  during  the  time  of  this  journey, 
though  goods  given  in  England  for  this  purpose  were  offered  for  sale  in 
Philadelphia.^  Delighted  with  the  warmth  of  his  welcome  he  announced 
through  the  papers  his  future  plans,  first  that  he  intended  to  visit  all 
the  southern  provinces  on  his  way  to  Georgia,''  and  later  that  he  would 
preach  the  gospel  in  every  province  before  his  return  to  England.^ 

During  his  visit  at  Philadelphia  he  had  intercourse  with  members  of 
the  Society  of  Friends,  exceeding  kindness  being  shown  him  by  some  of 
them.  He  speaks  of  them  as  honest,  open-hearted,  and  true.^  The 
Presbyterian  and  Baptist  ministers  came  to  his  lodgings  to  tell  of  their 
pleasure  in  hearing  "Christ  preached  in  the  Church."  There  is  no 
intimation  yet  that  the  former,  Jedediah  Andrews  and  Robert  Cross, 
would  become  bitter  opposers,  and  the  latter,  Jenkin  Jones,  his  special 

I  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  s,  p.  25;  No.  6,  p.  49;  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  No- 
vember 8,  1739. 

^  American  Weekly  Mercury,  November  8, 1 739.  Franklin  says,  "The  multitudes 
of  all  sects  and  denominations  that  attended  his  sermons  were  enormous."  He 
adds  that  when  Whitefield  preached  from  the  court-house  steps  in  the  middle  of  Market 
Street,  both  Market  and  Second  streets  were  fiUed  with  his  hearers  to  a  considerable 
distance.  Franklin  gives  no  hint  that  the  reports  in  his  own  and  other  papers  of  the 
number  of  Whitefield's  hearers  at  Philadelphia  were  exaggerations  (Franklin,  op.  cit., 
pp.  129-33).  Yet  these  reports  are  to  be  regarded  as  rough  estimates.  Friends  of 
the  movement  might  easily  in  perfect  honesty  overestimate  the  number.  The  pub- 
lished statements  probably  came  from  them,  as  we  know  was  the  case  in  the  beginning 
when  Seward  was  the  traveling  companion  of  Whitefield. 

3  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  November  8,  1739-  ^  Ibid. 

s  Boston  News-Letter ,  November  30,  1 739. 

'Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  pp.  27-29,  47. 


GEORGE  WHITEFIELD  47 

friend  and  supporter.'  He  had  fraternal  intercourse  with  the  Swedish 
minister  and  received  repeated  courtesies  from  Commissary  Cummings." 
The  commissary  was  a  poUtic  man,  very  different  from  the  combative 
Vesey,  of  New  York,  as  both  were  different  from  the  strong  and  evan- 
gehcal  Blair,  of  Williamsburg.  For  all  this  it  must  not  be  supposed  for  a 
moment  that  Whitefield  was  dumb  upon  a  conviction  which  was  burned 
into  his  very  soul.  He  believed  that  the  people  could  not  be  brought  to 
embrace  the  truth  until  they  were  convinced  that  they  had  been  falsely 
led.  Therefore  Jonathan  Allen,  the  church  missionary,  took  great 
offense  when  the  young  preacher  asserted  at  Philadelphia  that  the 
majority  of  Anglican  ministers  did  not  preach  the  truth,  making  them 
wolves  in  sheep's  clothing. ^  In  a  dissenting  meeting-house  he  would 
have  condemned  the  body  of  dissenting  ministers,  but  it  was  classes, 
not  individuals,  that  he  branded  as  unconverted. 

The  ministerial  intercourse  which  most  delighted  the  young  preacher, 
now  in  his  twenty-fifth  year,  was  that  with  the  old,  gray-headed  William 
Tennent,  of  Neshaminy,  Whitefield  says  in  his  journal  that  Tennent 
was  a  great  friend  of  the  Erskines,  and  just  as  they  were  hated  by  the 
judicatories  of  the  Church  of  Scotland,  and  as  his  Methodist  associates 
were  despised  by  their  brethren  of  the  Church  of  England,  so  too  were 
Tennent  and  his  sons  treated  by  the  majority  of  the  synod.  But  just 
as  surely  as  Elijah  overcame  the  prophets  of  Baal,  so  would  the  few 
evangelicals  overcome  their  opposers,  thought  Whitefield.  The  aged 
founder  of  the  Log  College  had  made  the  journey  of  twenty  miles  from 
Neshaminy,  called  by  the  voice  of  spiritual  kinship,  and  the  result  was 
an  alliance  between  Whitefield,  chief  exponent  of  storm  and  stress  in 
religion,  Anglican  though  he  was,  and  the  New  Brunswick  Presbyterians, 
who  above  all  others  had  made  the  Middle  Colonies  ready  for  a  religious 
revolution.'' 

After  nine  days  at  Philadelphia,  Whitefield  journeyed  toward  New 
York,  preaching  at  Burlington,  the  old  capital  of  West  Jersey,  and  at  New 
Brunswick,  the  home  of  Gilbert  Tennent. s  In  the  company  of  riders  was 
Jonathan  Allen,  the  clerical  itinerant  already  mentioned.  He  bitterly 
attacked  the  Calvinism  of  Whitefield  and  rebuked  him  for  publicly 
condemning  the  dead  Tillotson  and  the  living  bishops  and  clergy. 
Whitefield's  recourse  was  to  pronounce  him  a  carnal  man  unable  to 

'  Ihid.,  p.  28.  '  Ibid.,  pp.  29,  31. 

i  Ihid.,  p.  32;  Boston  News-Letter,  November  30, 1739. 
*  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  31.  s  Ibid.,  p.  34. 


48      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

discern  the  things  of  the  Spirit.^  Possibly  restrained  by  the  chastisement 
which  he  had  received  on  the  way  to  New  Brunswick,  Whitefield  excuses 
every  shght  divergence  from  the  usages  of  his  church.  There  was  at 
that  time  no  place  in  New  Brunswick  set  apart  for  the  worship  of  the 
Church  of  England.  But  learning  that  it  was  the  custom  of  the  country 
for  dissenters  and  conformists  to  worship  at  different  times  in  the  same 
building,  he  accepted  the  invitation  of  Gilbert  Tennent  to  preach  in  his 
meeting-house.  It  was  none  the  less  an  Anglican  service,  for  the 
liturgy  was  used.^  The  remaining  miles  to  New  York  were  short  ones, 
for  Whitefield  and  Tennent  cheered  each  other  by  the  relation  of  their 
similar  struggles  and  victories. 

The  travelers  were  welcomed  at  New  York  by  an  influential  layman 
who  had  twice  invited  Whitefield  to  visit  the  city.  With  this  gentleman 
and  Seward,  his  traveling  companion,  the  evangelist  called  upon  Com- 
missary Vesey,  but  the  interview  was  a  stormy  one.  The  use  of  the 
church  was  denied.  Vesey  charged  Whitefield  with  breaking  the  canons, 
and  Whitefield  returned  the  charge,  for  he  had  been  informed  that  Vesey 
was  a  frequenter  of  taverns,^  Vesey,  a  graduate  of  Harvard,  had  come  to 
Long  Island  as  a  dissenting  minister.  Indeed  as  such  he  was  elected 
minister  in  New  York,  but  the  wily  Governor  Fletcher  had  already  won 
him  over  to  the  Anglican  communion.  Having  been  imposed  upon  an 
overwhelmingly  dissenting  population  by  a  trick,  he  remained  a  clerical 
politician.  The  unscrupulous  Cornbury  was  a  governor  after  his  heart, 
but  milder  governors  were  bitterly  opposed  by  Vesey.^  Such  was  the 
man  who  had  listened  to  the  story  of  Jonathan  Allen  and  abetted  him  in 
his  newspaper  war  upon  Whitefield. 

Allen  followed  Whitefield  up,  determined  to  dispute  with  him. 
Whitefield  was  just  at  that  time  the  guest  of  WilHam  Smith,  a  Presby- 
terian and  a  leading  lawyer,  one  of  the  few  college  graduates  in  the 
province  and  father  of  its  future  historian.  Smith  lent  himself  so  far 
to  the  purposes  of  Allen  that  he  invited  him  to  his  table.  Here  Allen 
violated  the  laws  of  hospitahty,  so  abusive  was  he  of  Whitefield,  who 
refused  to  enter  into  disputation  with  him.s  Thereupon  Allen  published 
several  letters  against  Whitefield,  remarkable  for  their  billingsgate.  In 
them  he  urged  the  people  to  treat  with  neglect  and  contempt  the  pre- 

^  New  York  Post-Boy,  January  21,  1745- 

*  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  35.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  36. 

*  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2016;  Briggs,  American  Presbyterianism,  pp.  108, 
144,  145- 

s  Boston  Evening  Post,  February  11,  1740- 


GEORGE  WHITEFIELD  49 

tender  to  divine  inspiration.'  He  also  turned  upon  his  host,  William 
Smith,  making  him  a  deceiver.  Then  Smith  replied  in  measured  judicial 
language  but  clearly  proved  Whitefield  to  have  shown  himself  the  gentle- 
man, and  Allen  the  ruffian.*  Whitefield  did  not  reply  in  public  print, 
and  his  journals  make  not  the  slightest  allusion  to  Allen.  Others  came 
to  the  defense  of  the  evangelist,  among  them  Mangus  Falconer,  a  New 
Side  of  Philadelphia,  and  wielder  of  an  acrid  pen.''  These  letters,  pro 
and  con,  were  copied  from  one  paper  to  another,  and  so  the  debate 
attained  the  proportions  of  an  intercolonial  controversy  occupying  the 
pubUc  mind  from  Boston  to  Charleston. 

On  the  evening  of  Whitefield 's  arrival  at  New  York  he  listened  to  a 
sermon  preached  by  Gilbert  Tennent  in  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Never 
before  had  he  heard  such  a  searching  discourse.''  The  polished  Oxford 
graduate  was  taking  lessons  in  the  art  of  effective  oratory  from  the 
rough  product  of  the  Log  College.  So  deeply  was  he  moved  by  the 
truth,  as  he  considered  it,  presented  by  his  new  friend  and  by  the  evident 
success  of  a  method  so  overwhelming  and  so  terribly  direct  that  his  own 
method  of  preaching  was  sensibly  changed  by  his  intercourse  with  the 
Tennents.  When  he  visited  New  York  again,  early  the  next  year,  a 
roughness  was  noticed  by  his  hearers  which  was  said  to  have  been  lately 
acquired.^  Just  as  his  Calvinism  was  stiffened  by  his  intercourse  with 
Presbyterians,  so,  fully  conscious  of  his  youth  and  inexperience,  he  was 
ever  ready  to  learn  from  men  whose  piety  and  success  commanded  his 
admiration. 

With  the  pulpit  of  Trinity  Church  closed  to  Whitefield  he  applied 
for  the  use  of  the  Dutch  church,  but  Domine  Boel,  the  antagonist  of 
Frelinghuysen,  refused  him.^  Pemberton,  of  the  Presbyterian  church, 
offered  the  use  of  his  meeting-house,  but  Whitefield  was  slow  to  accept 
it  because  of  the  bitterness  between  Anglicans  and  Presbyterians.^ 
Under  the  governorship  of  Cornbury,  Presbyterians  had  been  persecuted 
in  New  York,  and  even  now  their  congregation  in  the  city  was  unable  to 
obtain  a  charter.  Whitefield,  lest  he  should  appear  as  the  spokesman 
of  a  party  and  his  influence  be  restricted  to  its  foUowng,  resorted  in  New 
York  to  field  preaching.    A  long,  sympathetic  account  of  his  activities 

'  Boston  News-Letter,  November  30, 1739;  American  Weekly  Mercury,  January  10, 
1740;  New  York  Gazette,  January  22,  1740;  New  York  Post-Boy,  January  21,  1745. 
^American  Weekly  Mercury,  December  13,  1739. 
i  Ibid.,  December  6,  1739. 

<  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  35.  ^  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2798. 

5  Boston  News-Letter,  June  5,  1740.  ^  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  37. 


50      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  TEE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

was  contributed  to  a  New  York  paper,  and  this  was  copied  by  others. 
With  a  deft  pen  Mr.  Pemberton,  for  the  article  was  attributed  to  him, 
described  Whitefield's  preaching  from  a  Httle  eminence  to  a  great  multi- 
tude disposed  upon  the  descent  before  him  and  on  either  side.  There 
were  two  companies,  a  compact  body  of  people  who  hung  upon  his 
words,  and  an  encircling  assembly  whose  laughter  and  scofl&ng  aroused 
the  speaker  to  subdue  these  "vassals  of  the  devil."  He  succeeded, 
for  a  solemn  awe  fell  upon  the  whole  assembly,  and  the  author  of  the 
description  was  astonished  at  what  he  saw  and  felt.  Every  scruple 
vanished,  and  he  confessed  that  he  had  never  seen  or  heard  the  like.' 

Whitefield  consented  to  preach  in  the  Presbyterian  meeting-house 
when  he  learned  that  even  Mr.  Vesey  had  preached  in  the  Dutch  Re- 
formed. He  did  so  in  the  evening,  following  his  afternoon  sermon  in  the 
fields,  and  he  continued  to  speak  there  twice  a  day  in  addition  to  the 
daily  preaching  in  the  fields.  The  outdoor  assemblies  increased  in 
spite  of  the  cold  November  air.  On  Sunday  morning  he  preached  at 
eight  o'clock  in  the  meeting-house  and  from  thence  went  to  Trinity 
Church  to  hear  his  doctrines  assailed.  At  the  close  of  the  day,  in 
the  meeting-house,  the  windows  of  which  were  removed  to  permit  the 
throng  outside  to  hear,  he  retorted  by  cautioning  the  people  against  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees  of  his  own  communion.  Thousands  had  come 
to  hear  his  farewell  sermon.^  In  four  days  he  had  won  a  great  popular 
following.  In  a  city  where  deep  rehgious  emotion  was  almost  unknown 
Whitefield  by  his  frankness,  earnestness,  and  pathos  had  opened  a  foun- 
tain of  tears.     Great  was  the  lamentation  of  the  people  at  his  going. 

On  the  return  journey  toward  Philadelphia  Whitefield  accepted  the 
previously  given  invitation  of  Jonathan  Dickinson,  Presbyterian  pastor 
at  Elizabethtown.  In  his  sermon  the  young  enthusiast  did  not  fail  to 
"open  his  mouth"  against  both  ministers  and  people  among  the  dis- 
senters who  contented  themselves  with  a  bare,  speculative  knowledge  of 
the  doctrines  of  grace,  "never  experiencing  the  power  of  them  in  their 
hearts."^  Dickinson  had  not  previously  entered  into  cordial  relations 
with  Gilbert  Tennent.  Whitefield's  journal  does  not  show  the  warmth 
of  fraternal  feeling  toward  the  theologian  which  he  always  expresses 
when  recording  his  intercourse  with  ministers  of  the  New  Brunswick 
party.  But  Dickinson  was  sincerely  evangelical,  and  this  invitation  to 
the  most  prominent  exponent  of  revivalism  thoroughly  committed  him 

^American  Weekly  Mercury,  December  27,  1739;  Christian  History  for  1744, 
P-359- 

'  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  39.  3  Ibid.,  p.  40. 


GEORGE  WHITEFIELD  51 

to  it.  At  the  same  time  the  commendation  given  to  Whitefield  by 
Pemberton  contributed  to  a  union  in  evangelistic  endeavor  between  the 
presbytery  of  New  York  and  the  more  radical  New  Brunswick  party. 

Coming  again  to  New  Brunswick  the  evangelist  met  several  of  the 
leaders  of  the  evangeHcal  movement  in  the  Middle  Colonies.  Among 
them  was  Domine  Frelinghuysen,  whom  Whitefield  calls  "the  beginner 
of  the  great  work  in  these  parts."'  Another  was  John  Cross,  Presby- 
terian pastor  at  Basking  Ridge.  The  members  of  his  hill  congregation 
were  called  "enthusiasts  and  mad  men"  by  those  who  were  ignorant  of 
the  hidden  Christ-life,  reports  Whitefield.  Still  another  was  James 
Campbell,  of  Newtown,  Pennsylvania,  a  neighbor  of  the  elder  Tennent. 
Campbell,  under  distress  of  soul  from  the  conviction  that  he  was  uncon- 
verted, had  ceased  to  preach,  but  Whitefield  persuaded  him  to  resume 
preaching  and  expressed  his  belief  that  the  new  unction  of  the  preacher 
would  convict  many  hypocrites  among  the  dissenting  ministers.^ 

At  Maidenhead  Whitefield  preached  from  a  wagon  to  a  great 
assembly  gathered  from  the  surrounding  country.  Here  he  met  John 
Rowland,  of  whose  success  he  speaks  approvingly.^  At  Trenton,  the 
next  point  on  the  way  toward  Philadelphia,  he  preached  in  the  court- 
house in  the  presence  of  a  condemned  criminal,  but  no  mention  is  made 
of  David  Cowel,  Presbyterian  pastor  at  Trenton,  leader  of  the  conserva- 
tives in  those  parts.  At  Neshaminy  he  found  a  crowd  gathered  from 
far  and  wide,  which  he  estimated  at  three  thousand."  He  describes  the 
log  house,  in  contempt  called  the  college.  To  his  mind  it  resembled  the 
schools  of  the  old  prophets.  Carnal  ministers,  according  to  Whitefield, 
opposed  the  venerable  teacher  because  his  faithful  preachers  drew  the 
people  away  from  their  ministry.^  At  Abington,  near  Philadelphia, 
the  traveler  preached  to  another  throng,  speaking  from  a  window  of  the 
meeting-house.  Richard  Treat  was  pastor  here.  So  deeply  affected 
was  Treat  by  the  pathetic  appeal  of  the  evangelist  that  he  concluded  he 
was  himself  a  stranger  to  grace.  He  attempted  to  preach,  but  could  not, 
and  confessed  to  his  people  how  he  had  deceived  them  and  himself. 

■  Ibid.,  p.  41.  "  Ibid.,  p.  42. 

■5  Ibid.,  p.  43. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  45:  "It  is  surprizing  how  such  Bodies  of  People  so  scattered  abroad, 
can  be  gathered  at  so  short  a  Warning.  I  beUeve  at  Neshamonie  there  might  be  near 
a  thousand  Horses."  Yet  in  the  Kentucky  Revival  of  1801  some  wilderness  congre- 
gations were  estimated  at  the  time  from  eighteen  to  twenty-five  thousand.  Cleve- 
land, The  Great  Revival  in  the  West,  p.  75. 

s  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  44. 


52      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

Nevertheless  he  continued  to  preach,  sorrowing,  in  the  hope  that  assur- 
ance would  be  granted  him.^ 

After  these  triumphs  in  three  provinces  Whitefield  returned  to  Phila- 
delphia. The  enthusiasm  of  the  people  mounted  higher  and  higher. 
It  was  estimated  that  his  congregation  at  Germantown  numbered  five 
thousand  people,  and  that  his  farewell  sermon  at  Philadelphia  had  ten 
thousand  hearers.^  With  the  exception  of  these  two  meetings  in  the 
open  air  his  twice-daily  preaching  services  were  in  the  church.  After 
five  stirring  days  he  left  Philadelphia,  accompanied  by  one  hundred  and 
fifty  horsemen,  stopping  and  preaching  at  various  points  until  he  reached 
White  Clay  Creek,  the  home  of  Charles  Tennent.  Whitefield's  appoint- 
ments had  been  well  advertised,  for  the  number  of  his  hearers  far  exceeded 
those  of  his  journey  across  New  Jersey.^  This  region  had  been  longer 
settled,  and  the  population  was  greater.  Charles  Tennent  was  a  less 
gifted  brother  of  Gilbert,  but  he  was  an  ardent  supporter  of  the  evangeli- 
cal cause  in  a  region  where  opposers  were  numerous.  Another  Presby- 
terian minister  of  that  region  who  assured  Whitefield  of  his  good  will 
was  George  Gillespie,  of  Christiana. 

Upon  entering  Maryland  there  was  an  abrupt  change  in  the  size  of 
the  audiences  as  reported  in  the  papers.  No  longer  were  the  hearers 
of  the  evangelist  computed  by  thousands.  This  was  true  of  the  long 
journey  through  the  coast  district  where  "roads  were  very  bad,"  till 
he  reached  Charleston  and  later  distant  Savannah. 

A  very  just  representation  of  the  effect  of  this  first  journey  of  White- 
field  through  the  Middle  Colonies  was  published  in  the  South  Carolina 
Gazette:  "We  hear  from  Philadelphia  and  New  York  that  since  Mr. 
Whitefield's  preaching  in  those  places  several  week-day  lectures  have 
been  set  up,  which  are  much  crowded,  and  that  sermons,  which  used  to 
be  the  greatest  drug,  are  now  the  only  books  in  demand.  "^  The  adver- 
tising columns  of  the  papers  substantiate  this  statement,  for  the  sudden 
output  of  religious  books  was  astonishing,  especially  of  Whitefield's 
sermons  and  journals  and  the  Wesleys'  hymns.  That  the  effects  of 
Whitefield's  ministry  in  Philadelphia  were  more  than  a  passing  wave 
of  emotion  is  shown  by  the  establishment  of  daily  religious  services 
which  were  continued  for  over  a  year,  and  of  meetings  of  the  same  char- 

'  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  20. 
'  Pennsylvania  Gazetie,  November  29,  1739. 
3  Virginia  Gazette,  January  18,  1740. 
*  South  Carolina  Gazette,  March  15, 1740. 


GEORGE  WHITEFIELD  53 

acter  three  times  on  Sunday.  Twenty-six  associations  for  prayer  were 
formed.'  For  the  future  reUgious  Ufe  of  the  country  there  was  even 
greater  significance  in  the  alUance  of  this  young  priest  of  the  Church  of 
England  with  the  extreme  evangehcal  party  within  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  The  witcher>'  of  Whitefield's  oratory  and  the  prestige  of  his 
name  were  given  to  the  Tennents  in  their  struggle  against  formality 
and  lifelessness  in  the  church. 

'  Webster,  A  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  165. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  YEAR  1740,  THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  AT  HIGH  TIDE 

The  Great  Awakening  is  often  called  the  revival  of  1740/  for  that 
was  the  year  of  Whitefield's  journey  through  New  England,  a  year  when 
New  England  turned  from  religious  indifference  to  a  quickened  interest 
as  great  as  animated  the  foimders  of  the  commonwealth  of  Massachu- 
setts, It  was  also  the  year  of  high  tide  in  the  religious  excitement 
throughout  the  Middle  Colonies.  The  two  journeys  of  Whitefield  and 
the  meeting  of  the  Presbyterian  synod  divide  the  year  into  five  parts. 

I.  Progress  oj  the  revival  before  the  spring  tour  of  Whitefield. — This 
period  embraces  the  first  three  and  a  half  months  of  the  year.  It  was 
during  this  time  that  the  revival  at  Newark,  New  Jersey,  attained  its 
height,  "when  the  whole  town  in  general  was  brought  under  an  uncom- 
mon concern  about  their  eternal  interests."  This  revival  had  begun 
among  the  young  people  in  August,  1739,  as  noted  in  the  preceding 
chapter.  As  late  as  February,  i74i' — for  we  must  sum  up  the  work  at 
Newark  in  a  single  paragraph' — the  interest  was  still  intense,  when  "the 
greatest  concern  appeared  among  the  risen  generation."  Yet  at  no  time 
was  there  a  special  preaching  of  terror.  The  convicted  did  indeed  cry 
out  in  agony,  but  Burr,  and  Dickinson,  who  came  to  Burr's  assistance, 
strove  to  repress  excessive  emotionalism.  In  spite  of  their  efforts  to 
avoid  just  cause  of  censure  a  spirit  of  censoriousness  did  appear  among 
some  of  the  new  converts.  This  and  other  blemishes,  almost  inseparable 
from  religious  excitement,  aroused  opposition  at  Newark,  even  among 
some  who  had  acknowledged  a  beneficent  and  mysterious  power  as 
working  mightily  in  their  midst.* 

The  general  but  smoldering  religious  fire  burst  into  flame  at  other 
points  in  that  section  of  the  country.  There  was  a  revival  during  the 
spring  of  1740  in  the  highlands  of  New  York  under  Leonard,  of  Goshen, 
and  William  Tennent,  Jr.,  went  to  his  assistance.^     In  the  same  province 

'  Edwards,  Thoughts  on  the  Revival  of  Religion  in  New  England  in  1740;  Tracy, 
The  Great  Awakening,  p.  iii  of  Preface. 

"  Christian  History  for  1743,  pp.  252-54. 

3  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  30;  Webster,  A  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
p.  458. 

54 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  AT  HIGH  TIDE  55 

at  the  eastern  extremity  of  Long  Island  James  Davenport  went  forth 
like  the  Hebrew  prince  with  his  armor  bearer  against  the  Philistines. 
Davenport  was  in  his  twenty-fourth  year,  and  Barber,  his  assistant,  was 
his  college  classmate.  Under  them  "lasting  good  was  done"  at  East- 
hampton,  but  their  methods  were  so  fantastic  that  people  not  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  itinerants  thought  them  mad.^  Dickinson,  Burr,  Leon- 
ard, Davenport,  and  Barber  were  all  Yale  men,  and,  Dickinson  excepted, 
all  were  of  about  Whitefield's  age. 

At  the  same  time  that  numerous  communities  in  New  Jersey  and 
New  York,  notably  Maidenhead,  Newark,  Goshen,  and  Easthampton, 
were  highly  excited  over  frequent  and  startling  convictions  and  con- 
versions, a  more  surprising  outburst  of  the  same  spirit  occurred  in  the 
very  stronghold  of  Scotch-Irish  conservatism,  the  southwestern  Pennsyl- 
vanian  settlements  of  that  day.  It  began  in  the  congregation  of  Samuel 
Blair  at  Fagg's  Manor.^  The  sermons  of  Blair  were  directed  principally 
to  the  unregenerate  and  were  very  searching.  In  March,  1740,  he  was 
returning  from  a  fortnight's  absence  in  New  Jersey,  when  a  hundred  miles 
away  from  home  a  message  reached  him  that  a  "deep  soul  concern"  had 
appeared  among  his  people.  The  fame  of  the  revival  soon  attracted 
people  from  afar.  Blair  frequently  exhorted  his  hearers  to  moderate 
their  passions  without  stifling  their  convictions.  The  greater  part 
silently  wept,  but  some  were  overcome  and  fainted.  He  could  not  con- 
demn as  spurious  the  experiences  of  those  who  were  the  subjects  of 
imusual  bodily  motions.  Yet  there  were  a  few  who,  seeing  others  weep 
and  faint,  endeavored  to  be  affected  in  the  same  way;  their  bodily  agi- 
tations did  not  come  from  a  sense  of  un worthiness,  or  even  from  terror 
at  the  displeasure  of  Jehovah.  Blair  gives  a  careful  analysis  of  the  cases 
which  came  under  his  observation.^ 

Members  of  other  congregations  who  had  flocked  to  Fagg's  Manor 
carried  the  revival  spirit  back  to  their  respective  communities.  One  of 
these  towns  was  Nottingham,  twenty  miles  from  Fagg's  Manor,  a 
vacancy*  in  the  presbytery  of  Donegal.  This  presbytery  was  the  center 
of  opposition  to  the  revival.     Only  two  of  its  ministers,  Creaghead  and 

'  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  32;  Webster,  op.  cil.,  p.  536. 

*  Blair  had  removed  from  Shrewsbury,  New  Jersey,  to  Fagg's  Manor,  Pennsyl- 
vania, in  1 739.  He  was  the  second  Log  College  man  to  join  the  presbytery  of  New 
Castle,  Charles  Tennent  having  preceded  him.  MS  Minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick 
Presbytery  for  July  31,  September  5,  October  11,  1739. 

3  Christian  History  for  1744,  pp.  242-60. 

*  A  pastorless  congregation. 


56      TEE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

Alexander,  were  favorable  to  it.  The  revival  at  Nottingham  in  the 
midst  of  hostile  territory  began  under  the  preaching  there  of  Samuel 
Blair,  and  he  was  followed  by  the  Tennents,  and  even  by  John  Cross.* 
There  was  a  party  of  opposition  within  the  church,  and  Cross  was  denied 
the  use  of  the  meeting-house.  Other  vacancies  from  time  to  time  were 
supplied  by  New  Side  ministers  upon  the  invitation  of  the  people.  Some- 
times pastors  who  were  unfriendly  to  the  movement  yielded  to  the 
importunities  of  their  parishioners  and  invited  these  itinerating  evan- 
gelists into  their  pulpits.^  Preaching  under  such  circumstances  was 
not  intrusion.     It  was  not  a  violation  of  synodical  rules. 

On  March  8,  1740,  Gilbert  Tennent  preached  his  famous  Notting- 
ham sermon  on  the  "Danger  of  an  Unconverted  Ministry."  It  was  a 
terrible  arraignment  of  men  who  entered  the  ministry  as  a  trade,  and 
who,  though  approved  by  the  public  institutions  of  learning  and  regu- 
larly admitted  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  were  strangers  to  a  con- 
suming religious  zeal.  Unconverted  themselves,  they  were  unconcerned, 
though  many  years  passed  without  a  conversion  in  their  congregations. 
Yet  in  a  day  of  quickened  interest  they  raised  their  voices  against  the 
frenzied  preachers,  as  they  represented  them  to  be,  who  by  uncharitable 
methods  put  poor  people  out  of  their  wits.  These  Pharisees  of  his  day 
resembled  those  of  old,  thought  Tennent,  "as  one  crow's  egg  does 
another."  He  advised  his  hearers,  who  were  gathered  from  many 
congregations  of  the  Donegal  presbytery,  to  frequent  the  meetings  of 
preachers  from  whom  they  received  the  greatest  benefit,  each  applying, 
however,  first  to  his  own  pastor  for  his  consent.^  No  names  were 
mentioned,  but  every  minister  recognized  by  his  people  as  hostile  to 
Whitefield,  Tennent,  and  the  revival  interpreted  the  sermon  as  an  attack 
upon  himself.  The  popular  mind  was  decidedly  favorable  to  the  revival, 
and  these  opposing  ministers — a  number  of  them  assuredly — were  brave 
men  who  lifted  their  voices  against  what  they  imagined  to  be  dangerous 
tendencies.  Many  of  them  lost  the  more  active  and  spiritual  from  their 
congregations.  They  attributed  their  losses  to  the  instigation  of  this 
and  similar  discourses.  The  Nottingham  sermon,  which  was  repeatedly 
published  and  widely  circulated,  was  one  of  the  causes  of  the  disruption 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  but  its  ultimate  effect  was  to  make  its  doc- 
trine the  dominant  policy  of  that  church.'' 

*  Whitefield,  Jotirnal,  No.  6,  p.  43. 

*  Christian  History  for  1744,  pp.  260,  261,  297. 

3  Gilbert  Tennent,  The  Danger  of  an  Unconverted  Ministry. 

*  Gledstone,  George  Whitefield,  p.  122. 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  AT  HIGH  TIDE  57 

2.  The  spring  tour  of  Whitefield. — We  have  just  seen  how  full  advan- 
tage was  taken  of  the  impetus  given  by  Whitefield  to  a  religious  reforma- 
tion. Now  he  was  coming  again  to  lend  the  good  cause  the  magnetism 
of  his  presence,  but  we  shall  presently  discover  another  side,  the  humani- 
tarian, of  this  many-sided  movement.  Whitefield's  second  evangelistic 
journey  through  the  Middle  Colonies  was  made  in  the  spring  of  1740. 
He  landed  at  New  Castle,  Delaware,  on  April  13,  and  sailed  from  Lewes 
on  May  25.  It  was  now  that  he  made  his  appeals  in  behalf  of  his  orphan 
house.^  Georgia  was  itself  established  as  a  charity,  but  the  distressed 
from  the  Old  World,  as  a  critic  of  Whitefield  put  it,  had  found  their 
graves  in  the  New  World.  Georgia  "  turned  out  to  be  to  them  the  sever- 
est cruelty."  They  "died  in  numbers,  leaving  their  helpless  babes 
quite  destitute,  and  in  a  wilderness;  so  that  out  of  the  ruins  of  this  first 
charitable  project,  sprang  up  grounds  for  a  second,  that  of  an  orphan 
house. "^  Whitefield  from  the  first  proclaimed  that  he  founded  his 
orphan  house  upon  the  model  of  the  famous  one  at  Halle.  He  intended 
to  make  it  part  of  an  evangelistic  and  educational  propaganda.  He  was 
encouraged  by  what  he  saw  of  the  diminutive  orphan  house  established 
by  the  Salzburgers  in  Georgia,  and  by  his  intercourse  with  the 
Moravians,  who  sustained  a  similar  enterprise  at  Herrnhut,  Saxony. 
Though  Bethesda,  as  he  called  his  orphan  house,  has  an  honorable  name 
in  the  early  history  of  Georgia,  its  greater  significance  is  that  it  furnished 
the  occasion  of  its  young  founder  preaching  in  every  American  province.'' 
In  a  cold,  unsympathetic  age  he  awakened  the  mellowing  and  civilizing 
emotions,  so  that  men  had  a  strange,  new  passion  for  their  fellows,  as 
well  as  a  new  delight  in  their  God. 

Still  other  philanthropic  enterprises  were  contemplated  by  White- 
field  at  this  time.  Through  his  whole  life  his  boundless  humanity  and 
inextinguishable  enthusiasm  led  him  to  establish,  or  at  least,  actively 
assist,  all  manner  of  benevolences.  When  he  had  made  his  first  long 
journey  through  the  southern  provinces  he  published  an  address  to  the 
planters  on  behalf  of  the  oppressed  slaves.  He  wrote  like  an  Old  Testa- 
ment prophet  stirred  by  the  wrongs  of  the  poor.  It  was  not  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery  which  he  attacked  but  its  abuse.  He  asked  that  the 
negroes  be  treated  humanely  and,  most  important  of  all,  be  instructed 
in  the  principles  of  the  Christian  religion.'*  Men  like  Commissary  Gar- 
den, of  Charleston,  criticized  the  address  as  an  incitement  to  insurrection,s 

' \Vhitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  48.       ^  Boston  Evening  Post,  November  19,  1744. 

^  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  46. 

*  New  England  Weekly  Journal,  April  29,  1740. 

s  Garden,  Six  Letters  to  the  Reverend  G.  Whitefield,  pp.  145-50. 


58      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

but  it  did  not  cost  Whitefield  his  popularity  in  South  CaroHna.  Pub- 
lished in  many  of  the  papers,  it  was  the  one  strong  appeal  in  that  time 
in  the  interest  of  the  negro,  and  it  turned  the  newly  awakened  sym- 
pathies of  Christian  people  to  the  extension  of  a  helping  hand  to  the 
African  in  America. 

Two  projects  illustrative  of  this  new  attitude  to  the  black  man  were 
planned  by  Whitefield  at  this  time.  Even  though  the  primary  purpose 
of  this  journey  was  the  collection  of  funds  for  Bethesda,  the  forlorn  state 
of  the  negroes  in  the  North,  as  well  as  in  the  South,  made  him  cry  out 
in  their  behalf  and  led  him  to  the  resolution  to  found  schools  for  them  in 
Philadelphia  and  at  the  Forks  of  the  Delaware.  He  actually  set  up 
the  school  in  Philadelphia  with  the  former  dancing-master  as  teacher.^ 
The  other  project  was  more  ambitious.  At  the  Forks  of  the  Delaware, 
near  Easton,  he  purchased  a  manor  of  five  thousand  acres  on  which  to 
estabhsh  a  negro  school.  To  this  tract  he  gave  the  name  of  Nazareth, 
which  it  still  bears.  It  was  intended  not  only  as  a  charity  for  negroes 
but  also  as  a  refuge  for  oppressed  English  Methodists.^  The  erection 
of  the  school  building  at  Nazareth  was  committed  to  the  Moravians,  and 
the  wealthy  William  Seward,  who  had  already  purchased  a  sloop  and 
lent  it  to  Whitefield,  now  advanced  the  purchase  money  for  the  Nazareth 
tract.  Seward's  sudden  death  obhged  Whitefield  to  sell  the  manor  to 
the  Moravians,  who  had  in  the  meantime  purchased  the  neighboring 
tract  of  Bethlehem.  The  dedication  of  Nazareth  to  education  and 
rehgion  was  splendidly  fulfilled  by  the  Moravians,  though  not  in  the 
specific  form  that  was  intended  by  the  first  great  friend  of  the  American 
negro.5 

The  second  journey  was,  however,  no  less  evangehstic  than  the 
first.  It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  his  itinerary,  for  he  traveled  along  the 
same  highways  between  the  two  leading  cities  as  the  year  before,  except 
that  a  greater  nimiber  of  side  excursions  were  made.  Instead  we  shall 
study  his  relations  with  the  various  denominations  of  Christians  and 
first  with  his  fellow  churchmen.  Commissary  Cummings  took  umbrage 
at  Whitefield 's  strictures  upon  the  latitudinarian  teachings  of  Archbishop 
Tillotson  and  ostensibly  upon  this  ground  denied  Whitefield  the  use  of 
Christ  Church.  Furthermore  the  commissary  complained  that  the  press 
of  the  city  was  shut  up  against  opposers.^    Franklin  denied  the  truth  of 

'  Boston  News-Lelter,  August  21,  1740. 

*  Franklin,  Autobiography,  p.  130;  New  England  Weekly  Journal,  May  6,  20, 
Junes,  1740- 

3  J.  T.  Hamilton,  The  Moravian  Church  in  the  United  States,  p.  439. 

*  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  19;  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  April  10,  1740. 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  AT  HIGH  TIDE  59 

the  report  that  Whitefield  had  engaged  all  the  printers  to  suppress  criti- 
cism upon  him.'  The  philosopher-printer  became  the  lifelong  friend 
and  admirer  of  the  evangelist.^  The  favor  of  the  three  papers  reflected 
the  state  of  public  opinion.  Now  that  the  Church  of  England  was  closed 
to  Whitefield  he  preached  twice  a  day  in  the  open  to  crowds  which  the 
church  could  never  have  held. 

One  evening  he  went  to  the  Baptist  meeting-house  to  hear  Jenkin 
Jones,  the  pastor,  of  whom  he  said,  reporting  the  sermon,  "He  is  the  only 
preacher  that  I  know  of  in  Philadelphia  who  speaks  feelingly  and  with 
authority."^  Afterward  Whitefield  preached  at  the  Baptist  meeting- 
house at  Pennypack  to  a  great  throng.  He  speaks  of  Abel  Morgan  as  one 
sent  forth  in  this  day  of  grace  to  preach  with  wonderful  unction.-*  A 
denomination  which  was  insignificant  in  Whitefield's  day  and  sadly 
divided  was  receiving  its  baptism  of  power,  which  subsequently  made  it  a 
mighty  force  in  the  religious  life  of  the  nation. 

In  the  preceding  year  the  Germans  of  Pennsylvania  had  received  the 
young  orator  as  if  he  were  Spener  or  Francke  come  to  life  again.  We 
have  already  seen  how  he  was  associated  with  the  Moravians  in  the 
founding  of  Nazareth  in  the  present  year.  Now  he  preached  at  some  of 
the  German  settlements  in  the  interior  and  noted  with  admiration  the 
simplicity  and  fervor  of  their  worship.  Peter  Boehler,  in  these  German 
meetings,  was  both  interpreter  and  assistant. s  This  Moravian  mission- 
ary, now  described  by  Whitefield  as  a  dear  lover  of  the  Lord,  had  been 
the  instructor  of  John  Wesley  in  his  search  for  a  personal  experience 
similar  to  what  he  so  admired  in  the  Moravians.  Some  hostile  critics 
later  said  that  Whitefield  brought  swarms  of  Moravians  to  the  Middle 
Colonies.  He  did  give  passage  to  a  little  company  of  them  when  they 
abandoned  their  mission  in  stricken  Georgia  and  came  on  his  sloop  to 
New  Castle.^  He  later  broke  with  them  over  doctrinal  questions,  but 
his  heart  was  too  genial  and  his  sympathy  too  broad  to  allow  him  long  to 
be  at  variance  with  so  good  a  people.  Whitefield  and  the  Moravians 
fanned  the  spirit  of  Pietism  again  into  flame  among  the  German  immi- 
grants. 

The  Dutch  of  New  Jersey  and  New  York  were  also  stirred  by  the 
visits  of  Whitefield  in  1739  and  1740.  The  greatest  of  the  revivals  under 
Frelinghuysen  was  now  in  progress.  In  our  account  of  the  contest 
within  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church  reference  was  made  to  the  stage 

'  Ibid.,  May  8,  1740.  *  Ibid.,  p.  36. 

*  Franklin,  op.  cit.,  p.  132.  s  Jhid.,  p.  26. 

3  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  35.  'Hamilton,  op.  cit.,  p.  439. 


6o      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

erected  for  Whitefield  at  New  York,  whereon  sat  Domines  DuBois  and 
Frelinghuysen,  one  the  most  influential  of  Dutch  pastors  and  the  other 
the  leader  of  the  reforming  party.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Whitefield 
accepted  the  invitation  of  Domine  Freeman  to  preach  in  his  church  at 
Flatbush.  Thus  the  evangelist  joined  with  the  party  of  Frelinghuysen 
to  extend  the  revival  among  the  Dutch/  with  what  ultimate  results 
will  be  told,  in  a  later  chapter. 

It  must  always  be  remembered  that  while  the  great  popular  following 
of  Whitefield  included  numerous  representatives  of  every  denomination, 
even  of  Quakers  and  Anglicans,  yet  the  chief  interest  lies  in  the  contest 
within  the  Presbyterian  Church.  The  most  active  itinerants  resident 
in  these  colonies  were  Presbyterians,  and  soon  the  most  outspoken 
critics  of  the  Great  Awakening  were  to  be  of  this  communion.  At 
Woodbridge  on  this  journey  Whitefield  preached  for  John  Pierson,  thus 
further  drawing  the  presbytery  of  New  York  into  union  with  the  presby- 
tery of  New  Brunswick.  But  the  meetings  which  exceeded  all  others  in 
the  absence  of  restraint  upon  the  emotions  were  held  at  Nottingham  and 
Fagg's  Manor,  where  the  New  Brunswick  men  had  brought  feeling  to 
high  tension.  As  the  orator,  quickly  responsive  to  the  sympathetic 
atmosphere,  spoke  out  of  the  fulness  of  his  love,  certain  of  the  auditors 
fainted,  revived,  listened,  and  fainted  again.  In  the  midst  of  such 
scenes  at  Fagg's  Manor  an  opposer,  a  member  of  the  synod,  challenged 
Whitefield  to  public  disputation.  There  was  no  appreciable  doctrinal 
difference  between  the  debaters,  except  that  Whitefield  urged  Christians 
to  seek  assurance,  while  his  critic  would  leave  them  in  a  state  of  uncer- 
tainty. The  real  meaning  of  the  incident  was  that  opposition  to  revi- 
valism now  became  outspoken.  It  was  the  answer  of  the  conservative 
Presbyterians  to  Gilbert  Tennent's  Nottingham  sermon .  In  Whitefield's 
farewell  sermon  at  Philadelphia,  preached  to  a  greater  throng  than  he 
had  ever  before  faced  in  America,  he  recommended  to  his  hearers  the 
Tennents  and  their  associates  as  most  worthy  preachers.^ 

3.  The  meeting  of  the  synod.- — Three  days  after  Whitefield  preached 
his  last  sermon  at  Lewes,  Delaware,  the  synod  of  Philadelphia  met.  The 
act  concerning  presbyterial  bounds  had  been  trampled  under  foot  by  a 
priest  of  the  Church  of  England  and  by  the  Presbyterian  pastors  and 
congregations  that  had  invited  him  to  their  pulpits.  The  synod  yielded 
to  the  demand  for  the  repeal  of  the  measure,  declaring  that  it  "heartily 
rejoiced  in  the  labors  of  the  ministry  in  other  places  besides  their  own 
particular  charge,"  and  now  agreed  that  ministers  should  "conduct 

» Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  pp.  30,  31.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  39. 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  AT  HIGH  TIDE  6i 

themselves  as  though  it  had  never  been."'  This  is  the  language  of 
conciHation  and  was  part  of  an  intended  healing  measure. 

A  compromise,  satisfactory  to  neither  side,  was  also  reached  dealing 
with  the  anomalous  position  of  the  probationers  and  ministers  of  the 
New  Brunswick  presbytery  who  had  not  submitted  to  synodical  examina- 
tion. In  the  language  of  the  overture  "the  synod  declared  that  they 
do  not  thereby  call  in  question  the  power  of  subordinate  presbyteries 
to  ordain  ministers  but  only  assert  their  own  right  to  judge  of  the 
qualifications  of  their  own  members."  They  therefore  acknowledge 
men  in  the  position  of  Rowland  to  be  "truly  gospel  ministers,"  but  they 
refuse  to  admit  them  to  the  synod  till  they  have  fulfilled  its  require- 
ments. The  synod  consents,  however,  "  that  they  be  in  all  other  respects 
treated  and  considered  as  ministers  of  the  gospel,  anything  that  may  be 
otherwise  construed  in  any  of  our  former  proceedings  notwithstanding."^ 

When  Gilbert  Tennent  had  wrested  from  the  majority  the  repeal  of 
a  measure  which  was  intended  to  restrict  the  operations  of  the  New 
Brunswick  ministers  and  had  vindicated  the  assertion  by  that  presbytery 
of  its  scriptural  and  historical  rights,  as  represented  in  Presbyterian 
directories  and  treatises,  he  might  well  have  left  to  the  future  the  com- 
plete victory  of  the  Log  College  party.  But  the  pugnacity  of  his  race, 
highly  developed  by  a  life  of  contention,  did  not  permit  him  to  accept 
from  the  majority  anything  less  than  absolute  surrender.  Thrilled  by 
the  thought  that  the  day  of  opportunity  had  come  to  the  church  for 
effective  evangelistic  labor  when  the  public  mind  was  aroused  to  the 
importance  of  reUgion,  he  could  not  understand  why  ministers  held 
back.  He  felt  that  their  insistence  upon  synodical  authority,  their 
exaltation  of  order,  and  their  fear  of  an  uneducated  ministry  were  all 
masks  to  cover  their  hatred  of  vital  religion.  Therefore  he  wrote  a 
terrific  indictment  of  his  fellow  members  of  the  synod  who  had  taken 
the  stand  against  the  movement.  Samuel  Blair  wrote  another  not  so 
passionate  but  no  less  offensive.  The  synod  listened  to  the  reading  of 
these  papers  in  the  presence  of  a  great  congregation  which  sympathized 
with  the  position  taken  by  the  writers.  If  Tennent  and  Blair  aimed  to 
convince  their  opposers  they  had  taken  an  unfortunate  course.  If  their 
purpose  was  to  incite  them  to  disorderly  measures  in  retaliation  they 
had  succeeded.  Thus  ended  the  meeting  of  the  synod  with  the  majority 
exasperated  and  indignant.^ 

'  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  152. 

'Ibid.,  p.  152. 

3  Hodge,  Constitutional  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  Part  II,  p.  120. 


62      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

4.  Progress  of  the  revival  from  the  meeting  of  the  synod  to  the  autumn 
tour  of  Whitefield. — While  Jonathan  Dickinson  and  other  advocates  of 
conciliation  were  endeavoring  in  synod  to  formulate  measures  of  peace 
between  the  extreme  reactionaries  and  the  belligerent  advocates  of 
revivalism,  Gilbert  Tennent  and  his  associates  were  interested  less  in 
the  proceedings  of  the  synod  than  in  the  great  meetings  held  on  Society 
Hill,  Philadelphia.  During  the  five  days'  session  fourteen  sermons  were 
preached  by  the  Tennents  and  Samuel  Blair  and  by  two  preachers  who 
were  not  members  of  the  synod,  James  Davenport,  of  Southold,  Long 
Island,  and  John  Rowland.  There  were  other  special  services  in  the 
Presbyterian  and  Baptist  meeting-houses  and  expoundings  and  exhorta- 
tions in  private  houses  according  to  the  custom  of  Whitefield.  The 
alteration  was  said  to  be  surprising.  Never  before  had  the  people 
shown  greater  willingness  to  attend  preaching  services,  nor  the  preachers 
greater  zeal  in  their  ofi&ce.     ReHgion  was  the  one  interest  of  the  time.' 

Some  of  the  New  Side  evangelists  were  detained  in  the  city  by  the 
clamor  of  the  people  after  the  adjournment  of  the  synod.  On  the 
Sunday  following,  Gilbert  Tennent  preached  four  times,  twice  on  Society 
Hill,  once  in  the  Presbyterian  meeting-house,  and  once  in  the  Baptist. 
His  largest  audience  was  estimated  at  eight  thousand.  Rowland 
preached  twice  in  the  Baptist  meeting-house.  At  one  of  these  services 
the  people  were  so  overcome  by  his  description  of  the  undone  condition 
of  sinners  that  Tennent  went  to  the  pulpit  stairs  and  cried  out,  "Oh, 
Brother  Rowland,  is  there  no  balm  in  Gilead?"  Then  the  speaker, 
startled  by  the  effect  upon  his  hearers  of  his  fearful  words,  began  to 
unfold  the  way  of  recovery.^  Tennent  refers  to  this  emotional  power 
of  Rowland,  which  was  sometimes  too  little  restrained,  when  in  his 
funeral  sermon  he  says:  "Being  young  in  years,  and  of  a  warm  temper, 
he  was  thereby  led  into  some  indiscretions  in  his  honest  and  earnest 
attempts  to  do  good,  which  it  pleased  God  to  convince  him  of  and 
reclaim  him  from  a  considerable  time  before  his  last  remove."^ 

The  criticism  of  Rowland  was  not  all  so  kindly.  Jenkin  Jones,  the 
pastor  of  the  Baptist  churches  at  Philadelphia  and  Pennypack,  was  a 
warm  friend  of  the  revival,  though  he  shared  Tennent's  desire  to  curb 
any  excess  of  emotionalism  among  the  people.  His  assistant,  Ebenezer 
Kinnersly,  subsequently  a  professor  in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
had  no  jJatience  with  emotional  demonstrations.     In  the  absence  of 

'  Boston  News-Letter,  June  26,  July  31,  1740. 

^Webster,  op.  cit.,  p.  471. 

^  Gilbert  Tennent,  A  Funeral  Sermon  ....  Rev.  John  Rowland,  p.  42. 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  AT  HIGH  TIDE  63 

the  pastor  he  bitterly  condemned  the  sermons  of  Rowland.  He  said 
that  the  people  were  terrified  to  distraction,  driven  to  despair,  or  filled 
with  enthusiastic  raptures.  The  speaker's  characterization  of  Rowland's 
method  was  so  resented  by  his  hearers  that  many  left  the  building. 
Charges  were  made  against  Kinnersly  in  church  meeting,  and  he  was 
temporarily  barred  from  communion.  The  abusive  letter  which  he 
wrote,  for  the  publication  of  which  Franklin  apologized  to  the  public,' 
was  itself  a  severe  censure  upon  the  conduct  of  Kinnersly,^  but  there  was 
doubtless  some  basis  for  his  objections  to  the  unregulated  emotionalism 
which  sometimes  attended  the  impassioned  oratory  of  Rowland. 

The  progress  of  events  takes  us  back  to  the  neighborhood  of  Newark, 
where  the  revival  early  in  the  year  had  been  so  remarkable.  It  is  to  be 
recalled  that  Jonathan  Dickinson  joined  in  that  work  and  invited 
Whitefield  into  his  own  pulpit.  Dickinson  now  reports  a  remarkable 
manifestation  of  the  divine  presence  at  Elizabethtown,  beginning  in 
June  of  that  year.  A  sudden  and  deep  impression  came  upon  the  people, 
but  there  was  no  crying  out  or  falling  down,  though  there  were  audible 
sobbing  and  sighing  in  all  parts  of  the  assembly.  The  work  here,  as  at 
Newark,  began  among  the  young  people,  but  persons  of  all  ages  were 
reached.  Conversions  were  not  sudden,  for  converts  were  a  long  time 
under  "law-work."  This  was  usual  among  Calvinists.  When  the 
consciousness  of  God's  love  burst  upon  the  converts  there  were  no  ecstatic 
raptures,  such  as  had  been  reported  in  some  places.  The  number 
reached  by  this  movement  is  suggested  by  a  passage  in  a  private  letter 
in  which  Dickinson  says,  "I  have  had  more  young  people  address  me 
for  direction  in  their  spiritual  concern  within  these  three  months  than  in 
thirty  years  before."'' 

The  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick,  not  the  presbytery  of  New  York, 
was  the  center  of  evangelizing  itineracy.  We  must  therefore  trace  its 
activities  in  sending  out  laborers  to  the  white  fields,  and,  this  done,  we 
must  follow  its  leading  member  in  his  greatest  successes.  James  McCrea 
accepted  the  call  of  a  group  of  congregations  newly  constituted  within 
the  bounds  of  the  presbytery.''  William  Robinson,  who  possessed  an 
attractive  and  amiable  personality  and  later  attained  great  success  in 
Virginia,  was  sent  to  a  group  of  churches  formerly  served  by  Samuel 
Blair.  Samuel  Finley,  a  man  who  combined  the  scholarship  of  Blair  and 
the  disputatious  spirit  and  preaching  power  of  Gilbert  Tennent,  was 

^Pennsylvania  Gazette,  July  24,  1740.  ^  Ibid.,  October  9,  1740. 

J  Christian  History  for  1743,  pp.  254-58. 

*  MS  Minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbytery  for  April  i,  1740. 


64      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

licensed  to  preach  as  a  probationer  wherever  Providence  might  direct. 
He  went  to  Nottingham  in  the  presbytery  of  Donegal.  His  presence 
there  was  most  annoying  to  the  Old  Side  ministers  of  that  conservative 
presbytery. 

The  late  summer  and  early  autumn  were  devoted  by  Gilbert  Tennent 
to  a  two  months'  journey  "southward"  through  the  destitute  regions  of 
what  is  now  called  South  Jersey,  a  tour  that  was  extended  even  to  Mary- 
land.' Samuel  Blair  had  previously  itinerated  in  the  same  region.  In 
the  whole  extent  of  country  from  Gloucester,  near  Philadelphia,  to 
Cape  May  there  were  in  1740  but  two  pastors,  Elmer,  of  Fairfield,  and 
Evans,  of  Piles  Grove,  both  Old  Side  ministers.  In  this  region  a  number 
of  ancient  churches  sent  out  a  feeble  cry  for  help.^  Whitefield,  after  his 
autumn  tour,  reported  the  singular  power  of  Tennent's  meetings  at 
Cohansey  and  Salem.^  The  success  of  both  Tennent  and  Whitefield 
in  this  region  was  apparently  greatest  at  Greenwich  in  Cohansey,  where 
the  New  Side  interest  was  afterward  strong.  Aided  now  and  later  by 
the  New  Brunswick  presbytery,  new  life  was  given  to  the  South  Jersey 
churches.  They  continued  prosperous  until  the  Revolutionary  War.'' 
Just  what  churches  were  visited  by  Gilbert  Tennent  in  Delaware  and 
Maryland  is  not  recorded,  but  they  probably  included  the  churches  of 
Charles  Tennent,  Gillespie,  and  Hutchinson,  who  were  friends  of  the 
revival  and  reported  a  great  reformation  in  some  of  the  congregations 
in  those  parts.* 

The  success  of  this  evangelistic  journey  immediately  became  a 
decisive  factor  when  a  larger  opportunity  was  presented.  When  White- 
field  entered  the  Middle  Colonies  again  after  his  astonishing  triumph 
in  New  England  and  Tennent  returned  from  his  "southward"  journey, 
the  two  itinerants  held  a  conference  at  New  Brunswick.  Whitefield 
was  accompanied  by  Daniel  Rogers,  tutor  in  Harvard  College  and  a 
recent  convert.  Rogers  brought  to  Tennent  an  invitation  from  several 
prominent  ministers  of  New  England  to  visit  Boston  and  New  England 
in  general  for  the  extension  of  the  religious  interest  so  powerfully  awak- 
ened by  Whitefield,    Tennent  was  distrustful  but  was  persuaded  by 

^  New  England  Weekly  Journal,  January  27,  1741. 

^  Brown,  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Churches  in  West  or  South  Jersey, 
pp.  10-14. 

3  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  7,  p.  74. 

■*  Brown,  op.  cit.,  pp.  20,  24. 

^  Gillespie,  A  Letter  to  the  ....  Presbytery  of  New  York, p.  7;  Whiteheld,  Journal, 
No.  7,  p.  61. 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  AT  HIGH  TIDE  65 

Whitefield  and  other  friends  and  encouraged  by  his  late  success  to  under- 
take the  mission.' 

Tennent  went  to  Boston  with  Rogers,  and  for  three  months,  accord- 
ing to  the  hostile  Dr.  Cutler,  "people  wallowed  in  the  snow  for  the 
benefit  of  his  beastly  brayings."-*  His  dress  and  personality  were  ridi- 
culed, but  nearly  all  of  the  pastors,  and  the  most  eminent  of  them,  testi- 
fied to  the  power  of  his  preaching.  The  results  exceeded  those  under 
the  preaching  of  Whitefield.  Nothing  so  wonderful  had  ever  been 
witnessed  in  Boston,^  and  there  were  similar  results  in  many  other  places. 
When  he  preached  at  New  Haven  a  number  of  the  students  were  con- 
verted. Several  of  these  entered  the  Presbyterian  ministry  in  the 
Middle  Colonies.  Among  them  was  James  Sprout,  for  twenty-four 
years  pastor  of  the  church  later  established  by  Gilbert  Tennent  in  Phila- 
delphia.'' Tennent  left  home  in  November,  1740,  and  he  returned  just 
before  the  meeting  of  the  synod  in  1741. 

5.  The  autumn  tour  of  Whitefield. — Repeated  reference  has  been  made 
to  the  triumphal  progress  of  Whitefield  through  New  England.  He 
landed  at  Newport,  Rhode  Island,  on  September  14,  1740,  entered  the 
Middle  Colonies  at  Rye,  New  York,  on  October  29,  and  sailed  from 
Reedy  Island  in  the  Delaware  Bay  on  December  i.  He  traveled  more 
than  eight  hundred  miles  in  this  autumn  through  New  England  and  the 
Middle  Colonies  and  collected  a  sum  in  excess  of  seven  hundred  pounds 
sterhng.s 

His  experiences  in  the  Middle  Colonies  were  like  those  of  his  two 
earher  journeys.  There  was  no  diminution  of  his  popularity.  His 
route  was  little  changed  from  that  taken  before.  At  Rye  he  was  invited 
by  the  rector  to  preach  in  the  English  church,  an  encouraging  sign  that 
his  own  church  was  not  wholly  unsympathetic  with  an  evangelical 
reformation.  At  Trenton  he  was  invited  by  the  Old  Side  Presbyterian 
minister,  Cowell,  to  preach  in  his  meeting-house,  an  indication  that  all 
the  conservative  ministers  were  not  committed  to  extreme  measures  of 
hostility.  He  enjoyed  preaching  most  in  places  thoroughly  committed 
to  the  movement.  When  appointments  were  made  in  such  places  great 
assemblies  gathered  from  a  wide  extent  of  country.  Meetings  of  this 
character  were  held  at  Basking  Ridge,  New  Jersey,  the  home  of  John 
Cross,  which  Whitefield  had  not  visited  before,  and  at  other  New  Jersey 

^  Ibid.,  p.  65;   New  England  Weekly  Journal,  January  27,  1741. 

*  Webster,  op.  cit.,  p.  390.  ^  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  391. 

<  Beadle,  The  Old  and  the  New,  pp.  85-87. 

s  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  7,  p.  78. 


66      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

towns,  at  Fagg's  Manor,  Pennsylvania,  where  there  was  a  general  weep- 
ing, and  at  Nottingham,  where  the  people  stood  in  the  rain  to  hear  him. 
There  were  precious  times  at  Bohemia,  Maryland,  the  home  of  Hutchin- 
son and  the  Bayard  family,  friends  of  the  evangelical  cause. 

We  have  seen  how,  early  in  the  year,  in  one  of  those  picturesque  out- 
of-doors  meetings,  where  thousands  of  hearers  had  yielded  assent  to  a 
message  which  awakened  every  holy  aspiration,  Presbyterian  oppositon 
Hfted  its  hoarse  voice  of  protest.  Now  in  the  autumn  it  opened  a  cam- 
paign of  pamphlets  against  Whitefield.  When  he  reached  New  York 
upon  leaving  New  England  there  came  to  his  notice  a  "bitter  pamphlet," 
called  the  Querists,  printed  with  the  approval  of  the  presbytery  of  New 
Castle.  The  tract  began  in  a  tone  of  moderation,  but  it  ended  by  doubt- 
ing the  genuineness  of  the  conversion  of  great  numbers  because  they  had 
never  before  shown  any  regard  for  rehgion,  and  by  charging  the  chief 
instrument  in  their  reclamation  with  being  a  Papist  under  the  disguise 
of  a  Calvinist.  Whitefield  immediately  pubHshed  a  letter  in  New  York 
in  answer  to  the  tract.'  The  Querists  presents  the  argument  of  the  con- 
servatives against  Whitefield  personally  and  against  the  movement  of 
which  he  was  the  chief  promoter.  The  answer  is  a  luminous  illustration 
of  the  spirit  in  which  Whitefield  met  criticism,  however  hostile,  that  had 
a  semblance  of  sincerity. 

One  class  of  objections  was  from  the  point  of  view  of  men  trained  in 
the  exact  terminology  of  the  Shorter  Catechism  against  one  who  employed 
scriptural  figures  and  the  broad  expressions  of  Pietists  and  mystics. 
The  authors  of  the  Querists,  for  example,  objected  to  his  speaking  of 
Christ  being  spiritually  formed  in  men's  hearts,  as  being  equivalent  to 
the  Quaker  Barclay's  representation  of  the  "Christ  within."^  Charles 
Tennent  urged  in  defense  of  Whitefield  that  his  expressions  were  capable 
of  an  orthodox  interpretation,  and  that  this  should  be  given  them,  since 
his  teaching  in  general  was  in  accord  with  Calvinistic  doctrine.^  But 
Whitefield  in  his  answer  acknowledged  the  justice  of  the  criticisms  of  this 
class.  He  excused  himself  as  insufl5ciently  trained  in  the  Calvinistic 
system  when  he  left  the  university,  having  been  led  into  the  light  by 
degrees.  He  therefore  desired  the  prayers  of  his  critics  that  he  might 
be  led  to  a  more  perfect  understanding  of  the  truth,  and  to  this  end  he 
professed  himself  ever  willing  to  receive  correction.'' 

'  Boston  News-Letter,  November  27,  December  4,  1740. 

^  Querists,  p.  23. 

3  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  October  16,  1740. 

<  Whitefield,  A  Letter  .  ...  In  Answer  to Querists,  pp.  59-64. 


THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  AT  HIGH  TIDE  67 

Another  class  of  objections  was  directed  against  this  cathohc  spirit. 
If  a  Calvinist  could  join  the  Lutherans  and  Arminians  in  religious  work, 
would  he  not  turn  Papist  at  Rome  ?  If  a  churchman  reproved  clergy- 
men for  leaving  the  Church  and  at  the  same  time  encouraged  dissenters 
in  their  separation  by  preaching  in  their  meeting-houses,  was  he  not 
helping  to  perpetuate  the  rent  in  the  robe  of  Christ  ?'  To  these  objec- 
tions Whitefield  answered  that  his  design  was  to  bring  poor  souls  to 
Christ.  In  prosecuting  his  mission  to  meet  this  design  he  hoped  to  avoid 
the  extreme  of  bigotry  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  that  of  con- 
founding order  and  decency.^ 

A  third  class  of  objections  was  bitter  and  even  malignant  in  statement. 
Whitefield  declined  to  answer  them  in  detail.  His  critics  charged  him 
with  superstition.  They  insinuated  that  his  aims  were  sinister.  They 
doubted  the  reported  charitable  deeds  of  the  English  Methodists.  They 
denounced  their  associates  who  idolized  a  raw,  unstable  novice  with  his 
"unturned  cakes,"  even  to  the  overthrow  of  Presbyterian  judicatories 
and  discipline.  They  expressed  their  contempt  for  the  rabble  which 
now  deserted  its  former  ministers.'  They  decried  convulsions  and  revela- 
tions. Whitefield  regretted  that  they  had  dipped  their  pens  in  gall  and 
suggested  that  their  insinuations  were  contrary  to  the  charity  which  the 
apostle  recommends. 

It  is  a  relief  to  turn  from  the  impotent  rage  of  good  men  whose 
horizon  was  appallingly  narrow  to  a  splendid  exhibition  of  evangelical 
cathohcity.  A  permanent  monument  to  the  influence  of  Whitefield 
in  the  eventful  year  of  1740  was  erected  at  Philadelphia.  When  the 
English  church  was  denied  him  in  May  many  of  his  supporters,  in  the 
warmth  of  their  indignation,  proposed  to  build  him  a  great  church.  He 
feared  that  the  evangelical  revival  would  be  narrowed  by  the  adoption 
of  such  a  policy  to  the  walls  of  a  building  and  to  the  limits  of  a  party .^ 
Yet  after  his  departure  the  plan  was  accommodated  to  his  principles, 
as  will  presently  be  explained,  and  in  July  the  trustees  announced  their 
purpose  to  erect  a  large  building.^  In  November,  upon  his  return  to  the 
city,  he  preached  sixteen  times  in  the  New  Building,  as  it  was  called, 
though  it  was  not  yet  covered. ^ 

'  Querists,  pp.  40-43. 

^  Whitefield,  A  Letter  .  ...  In  Answer  to  ...  .  Querists,  p.  67. 
3  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  40. 

^  Pennsylvania  Magazine,  quoted  by  Pennypacker,  Origin  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  in  1740,  p.  413. 

5  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  November  27,  1740. 


68      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

The  purpose  of  the  New  Building  was  twofold.  Whitefield  says: 
"None  but  orthodox  experienced  ministers  are  to  preach  in  it,  and  such 
are  to  have  free  liberty,  of  whatever  denomination."^  It  was  also  to  be 
a  charity  school,  and  the  appointment  of  its  master  was  committed 
to  Whitefield,  who  was  made  one  of  the  trustees.  Lest  the  building 
should  be  appropriated  to  the  use  of  a  single  denomination,  it  was  pro- 
vided that  one  trustee  should  be  a  churchman,  one  a  Presbyterian,  one  a 
Baptist,  one  a  Moravian,  and  so  on  till  the  number  was  complete.^ 
The  New  Building  lacked  the  financial  backing  of  a  permanent  organiza- 
tion, and  it  was  built  for  an  itinerant  preacher  who  could  only  after 
long  intervals  occupy  its  pulpit.  Yet  it  was  a  memorial  to  the  charm  in 
the  name  of  Whitefield.  It  will  be  necessary  in  its  proper  connection 
to  say  something  more  concerning  the  Old  Academy,  as  it  was  afterward 
called,  and  the  generous  fulfilment  of  its  twofold  trust.  The  picture  of 
Whitefield  preaching  to  a  delighted  multitude  in  the  roofless  New  Build- 
ing, even  in  the  cold  days  of  November,  fittingly  closes  the  story  of  a 
wonderful  year  in  the  Middle  Colonies. 

^Pennsylvania  Gazette,  December  4,  1740. 
'  Franklin,  op.  cit.,  p.  149. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  SCHISM  IN  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  IN  THE 

YEAR  1741 

At  the  beginning  of  the  year  1741  the  two  great  itinerant  evangelists, 
George  Whitefield  and  Gilbert  Tennent,  were  beyond  the  borders  of 
the  Middle  Colonies.  Yet  the  conservative  Presbyterian  ministers 
looked  in  vain  for  a  subsidence  of  the  religious  excitement.  The  Great 
Awakening  had  now  become  a  people's  movement. 

The  Old  Side  ministers  lost  a  splendid  opportunity  to  build  up  their 
churches  and  contribute  to  a  moral  revolution.  They  desired  both  these 
things,  but  they  lacked  vision.  All  recognized  that  there  had  been  reli- 
gious decay.  Now  was  the  time  to  arrest  it  when  the  people  were  awake. 
When  the  need  of  the  hour  was  warmth  of  appeal  to  men  to  live  for  higher 
things,  they  were  warm  only  in  their  denunciation  of  their  associates 
who  were  making  such  appeals.  The  answer  of  Whitefield  to  the  Querists 
had  been  so  conciliatory  that  the  authors  might  well  have  declared  them- 
selves satisfied.  He  had  made  every  doctrinal  concession  to  them  that 
they  could  demand.'  Yet  they  returned  to  the  attack  upon  him  in 
their  former  bitter  spirit.^  They  opposed  impressions  and  impulses. 
So  did  Jonathan  Edwards,  but  he  entered  into  hearty  co-operation  with 
Whitefield.^  They  opposed  bodily  agitations.  So  did  Jonathan  Dickin- 
son, but  he  was  none  the  less  a  promoter  of  the  revival.''  The  relations 
of  Whitefield  and  the  Boston  pastors  were  beautifully  harmonious,  but 
in  that  city  these  bodily  agitations  were  openly  discouraged  and  were 
absent  from  his  meetings.^  Indeed  the  preaching  of  Whitefield,  not- 
withstanding its  overmastering  appeal  to  the  emotions,  was  not  of  a 
character  to  terrify  and  so  result  in  cries  and  faintings  as  was  the  preach- 
ing of  Jonathan  Edwards  and  Gilbert  Tennent.    These  phenomena 

^  South  Carolina  Gazette,  January  22,  1741. 

^Pennsylvania  Gazette,  June  11,  1741;  August  26,  1742. 

3  Dvvight,  Edwards,  p.  147.     Yet  Edwards  did  not  oppose  bodily  agitations. 

*  Christian  History  for  1743,  p.  155.  Gilbert  Tennent  denies  that  he  was  an 
instrument  of  promoting  bodily  agitations,  but  claims  that  from  their  first  appearance 
in  New  Jersey  he  spoke  against  them  {Examiner  Examined,  p.  46).  Neither  Blair 
nor  Rowland  desired  to  produce  them. 

5  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  386. 

69 


70      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

were  therefore  most  unusual  in  his  ministry  and  never  were  regarded  as 
having  any  relation  to  true  conversion.  The  conservatives  opposed 
convulsions.  So  did  Whitefield  himself.  He  looked  upon  them  as 
blemishes,  the  work  of  Satan  to  cast  discredit  upon  the  revival.^  The 
Old  Side  ministers  did  not  avail  themselves  of  the  assistance  of  the  great 
orator.  They  did  not  adopt  any  of  the  measures  which  were  open  to 
them  to  promote  a  revival.  They  stiffly  closed  their  pulpits  to  the  pos- 
sessors of  evangelistic  gifts,  or  so  grudgingly  opened  them  that  their 
hostility  was  apparent.^  Thus  they  appeared  to  the  zealous  of  their 
own  congregations  and  to  pastors  who  threw  themselves  unreservedly 
into  the  movement  as  enemies  of  the  work  of  God,  even  as  strangers  to  a 
work  of  grace  in  their  own  hearts. 

The  storm  center  was  the  presbytery  of  Donegal.^  This,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  the  frontier  region  of  Pennsylvania.  Its  territory  lay  on  both 
sides  of  the  Susquehanna  River.  The  crisis  came  over  the  question  of 
intrusion,  the  preaching  of  one  minister  in  the  parish  bounds  of  another 
without  his  consent.  It  is  often  assumed  that  Gilbert  Tennent  and  his 
associates  intruded  upon  other  pastors,  but  their  denial  is  supported  by 
the  weight  of  evidence.''  Whitefield,  to  be  sure,  had  no  hesitation  to 
preach  within  the  parishes  of  clergymen  who  denied  him  their  pulpits. 
He  asserted  his  right  as  a  gospel  minister  to  preach  anywhere.^  Without 
resort  to  intrusion  and  field  preaching  the  Methodist  Revival  in  England 
would  have  been  an  impossibility,  at  least  as  a  movement  within  the 
national  church.  Gilbert  Tennent  did  not  hold  quite  the  same  theory. 
He  held  that  it  was  a  time  of  great  opportunity,  when  religious  necessity 
took  precedence  of  ecclesiastical  regulations,^  at  least  of  relatively  unim- 
portant administrative  measures  and  usages  proper  enough  to  a  time  of 
normal  church  activity.  Therefore  he  was  free  to  preach  in  vacancies 
under  the  care  of  other  presbyteries  than  his  own,  even  before  the  law 

'  Gledstone,  George  Whitefield,  pp.  226,  227.  Whitefield's  Journals  report  frequent 
melting  times  in  his  audiences,  but  it  was  seldom  that  demonstration  was  carried 
farther.  Gilbert  Tennent,  while  discouraging  extreme  appearances,  thought  them 
otherwise  to  be  explained  than  as  coming  from  the  devil.  Gilbert  Tennent,  Examiner 
Examined,  p.  46. 

'  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  260;   Tracy,  The  Great  Awakening,  p.  350. 

*  Webster,  A  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  160. 

*  Hodge,  Constitutional  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  Part  II,  p.  140. 
s  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  4,  p.  18;  No.  5,  p.  36;  No.  6,  p.  11. 

^  New  England  Weekly  Journal,  January  27,  1741.  This  principle,  to  which  he 
made  frequent  appeal,  was  clearly  stated  in  the  Directory.  Confessians  of  Faith, 
p.  179. 


THE  SCHISM  IN  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  71 

prohibiting  this  was  repealed  by  the  synod.  He  was  not  incapable  of 
intruding  upon  pastors  unfraternal  enough  to  deny  him  their  pulpits, 
but  that  he  did  so  there  is  no  proof.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  however, 
that  he  did  not  recognize  the  binding  authority  of  the  law  just  men- 
tioned, but  he  fully  recognized  the  legal  power  of  a  pastor  within  the 
bounds  of  his  own  parish.  In  fact  he  repudiated  the  charge  of  intrusion 
upon  the  fields  of  other  pastors. 

The  theory  and  practice  of  the  New  Brunswick  party  were  further 
illustrated  by  the  course  of  Samuel  Blair,  who  was  the  pioneer  of  the 
party  in  the  territory  distinctively  Scotch-Irish.  He  went  before  Ten- 
nent  and  Whitefield  to  Nottingham  as  an  itinerant  evangelist.  He 
preached  in  other  places  in  the  presbytery  of  Donegal.'  It  is  evident 
that  he  had  not  intruded  upon  pastors  before  the  meeting  of  the  synod 
in  1740,  for  he  then  threatened  in  the  name  of  the  evangelical  ministers 
to  answer  the  invitations  of  people  whose  pastors  opposed  the  revival  by 
going  to  preach  to  them.^  At  a  meeting  of  the  presbytery  of  Donegal  in 
that  same  year  a  representation  was  made  that  he  had  intruded  upon 
several  of  the  members.^  Notwithstanding  the  vague  charges  then 
made,  it  can  be  shown  that  he  did  not  intrude  but  went  upon  consent 
reluctantly  given.  The  nature  of  these  so-called  intrusions  is  described 
in  his  own  account  of  the  revival  in  the  province.  According  to  this 
account  ministers  whose  discourses  were  searching  and  whose  manner 
was  pathetic  were  earnestly  sought  by  vacant  congregations ;  and  minis- 
ters who  did  not  put  their  shoulders  to  help  yielded  to  the  importunities 
of  their  people  to  invite  such  brethren  to  their  pulpits.''  Robert  Smith, 
son-in-law  of  Blair,  writing  afterward  in  defense  of  the  New  Side  minis- 
ters, says :  "  Some  of  our  ministers  preached  at  their  brethren's  invitation 
in  their  pulpits ;  but  that  they  ran  into  their  congregations  with  a  design 
to  rend  and  divide  them  is  not  true."s 

Not  all  advocates  of  revivalism  kept  within  the  law  of  their  church 
by  threatening  to  apply  the  higher  law  of  necessity.  Samuel  Blair  was 
a  visitor  from  the  neighboring  presbytery  of  New  Castle,  but  all  the 
ministerial  members  of  Donegal  were  hostile  to  the  revival,  with  two 
exceptions,  Alexander  Creaghead,  of  Middle  Octorara,  and  David  Alex- 
ander, of  Pequea.  These  two  men  were  independent  sympathizers 
with  the  New  Brunswick  party.     Creaghead  co-operated  with  this  party 

'  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  43. 

"  Hodge,  op.  cil.,  Part  II,  p.  135.  3  Ibid.,  p.  141. 

*  Christian  History  for  1744,  p.  260. 

5  Smith,  The  Detection  Detected,  p.  1 20. 


72      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

until  August,  1 741,  but  in  principles  he  was  a  Cameronian.  Notwith- 
standing his  strict  notions  on  subscription  Creaghead  held  that  ministers 
ought  not  to  be  confined  to  particular  charges.  He  roamed  about  as 
the  most  impassioned  advocate  of  the  revival.  He  preached  within  the 
territorial  limits  of  the  congregation  of  Francis  AHson,  of  New  London, 
in  the  presbytery  of  New  Castle,  without  the  consent  of  the  pastor. 
AUson  complained  to  the  presbytery  of  Donegal,  and  that  body,  meeting 
at  Middle  Octorara,  suspended  Creaghead  from  the  ministry.' 

Like  Creaghead  in  his  insurgency  was  his  friend  David  Alexander,  the 
young  pastor  at  Pequea.  He  also  for  a  little  time  co-operated  with  the 
New  Brunwsick  men.  He  intruded  upon  the  field  of  Samuel  Black,  of 
the  Forks  of  the  Brandy  wine.  Black  was  not  a  man  of  unsullied  reputa- 
tion, as  is  evidenced  by  his  suspension  for  a  season  by  the  presbytery. 
Alexander  gloried  in  preaching  in  the  congregational  bounds  of  such  a 
minister.  The  presbytery  met  at  Alexander's  meeting-house  in  May, 
1741,  and  he  too  was  suspended  from  the  ministry.^  The  fact  that  these 
two  cases  of  intrusion  were  tried  by  a  presbytery,  and  appeal  was  carried 
to  the  synod,  indicates  that  there  was  no  clear  basis  for  similar  action 
against  the  more  prominent  promoters  of  the  revival.  This  world 
movement  generally  put  the  loyalty  to  the  church  universal  above  the 
loyalty  to  the  denomination.  For  this  reason  the  Cameronians  and 
even  the  Seceders  of  Scotland  raved  in  impotent  fury  against  Whitefield. 
But  here  we  find  men  of  the  narrow  Cameronian  type  uniting  with  White- 
field  and  his  supporters.  Creaghead  and  Alexander  were  evidently  not 
esteemed  by  Blair  and  Smith  as  actually  identified  with  their  party. 
Creaghead  particularly  was  an  extremist  not  only  in  his  Cameronianism 
but  in  his  utter  disregard  of  presbyterial  authority  and  in  the  divisive 
methods  which  he  employed.^  In  that  day  of  extravagant  asseveration, 
when  the  licensing  of  one,  two,  or  three  men  each  year  was  denounced 
as  the  letting  loose  of  a  horde  of  illiterate  licentiates,  so  too  the  unregu- 
lated activities  of  two  men  easily  led  to  an  outcry  against  all  revivalists 
as  rebels  against  ecclesiastical  authority  and  as  intruders  everywhere 
upon  the  parishes  of  their  brethren. 

Thus  the  battle-ground  between  the  extreme  advocates  of  the  revival 
and  extreme  conservatives  was  in  the  presbytery  most  remote  from  New 
Brunswick.  This  was  due  to  several  causes.  The  majority  of  the 
Donegal  ministers  were  rigid  Presbyterians,  placing  stress  on  subscrip- 

'  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  Part  II,  p.  142. 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  143,  144;  Webster,  op.  cit.,  pp.  162,  438. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  435;    Gilbert  Tennent,  Examiner  Examined,  p.  121. 


THE  SCHISM  IN  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  73 

tion  to  formulas  and  on  presbyterial  authority.  Yet  inconsistently  they 
resisted  compliance  with  the  rule  of  the  synod  requiring  examination  of 
candidates  for  the  ministry  upon  their  gracious  experiences,  and  they 
were  culpably  lenient  in  their  treatment  of  grave  moral  offenses.' 

Another  cause  of  intense  partisanship  was  in  the  character  of  the 
people.  Scattered  among  the  immigrants  were  those  who  clung  defiantly 
to  Cameronia  ^  principles.  Others  sympathized  as  hotly  with  the  Seced- 
ers  of  Scotland.  The  Scotch  and  Scotch-Irish  in  their  numerous  revivals 
have  been  peculiarly  susceptible  to  unrestrained  emotionalism,  with  its 
attendant  phenomena.^  At  the  same  time  the  rigid  formalists  were 
hostile  to  the  cultivation  of  the  subjective  side  of  religion.  Extremes 
therefore  met  not  only  among  the  ministers  of  the  presbytery  but  among 
the  people.  Feeling  ran  high  on  account  of  the  trials  of  Creaghead  and 
Alexander.  The  supporters  of  the  revival  in  several  of  the  churches 
presided  over  by  ministers  bitterly  antagonistic  to  it  petitioned  the  pres- 
bytery of  New  Brunswick  at  the  close  of  May  to  send  supplies  to  them.' 
Some  of  these  people  were  probably  bent  on  their  erection  as  separate 
congregations. 

The  synod  met  at  Philadelphia  on  May  27,  1741.  Gilbert  Tennent 
had  just  returned  from  New  England.  He  was  still  under  the  spell 
of  his  phenomenal  success  and  was  as  determined  and  aggressive  as 
ever.  The  New  Brunswick  men  were  confident  that  the  seal  of  divine 
approval  was  upon  the  course  which  they  had  so  earnestly  pursued. 
The  first  question  that  came  up  was  the  right  of  the  two  suspended 
members  to  seats  in  the  synod.  Objection  was  made  especially  to  Creag- 
head, and  the  contest  was  waged  over  his  case.  Charges  and  counter- 
charges were  made  by  the  Donegal  presbytery  and  Alison  on  the  one 
side  and  by  Creaghead  and  his  congregation  on  the  other.''  Gilbert 
Tennent  thought  that  in  a  great  crisis  the  saving  of  life  was  more 
important  than  the  precise  observance  of  mere  rules  of  procedure,  but 
he  was  not  prepared  to  maintain  that  Creaghead  had  correctly  applied 
the  theory.  Neither  was  he  willing  to  desert  Creaghead  and  admit  the 
intrusion  without  justification.  His  hoped-for  solution,  it  seems,  was 
in  the  mediating  findings  of  an  investigating  committee,  censuring  both 
Creaghead  for  his  lawless  support  of  a  good  cause  and  Alison  for  his 

'  Gillespie,  A  Letter  to  the  ...  .  Presbytery  of  New  York,  p.  7;  Webster,  op.  cit., 
P-  457. 

'  Davenport,  Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals,  pp.  60,  87. 

3  MS  Minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbytery  for  June  2,  1741. 

<  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  154,  155. 


74      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

opposition  to  the  revival.  After  three  days'  debate  the  synod  could  not 
yet  agree  upon  the  personnel  of  the  committee  which  was  to  go  to  Middle 
Octorara  for  the  trial  of  Creaghead.  In  the  heat  of  debate  it  was  easy 
to  pass  from  the  actual  case  before  the  synod  to  the  larger  question  of 
the  attitude  toward  the  revival  itself.^ 

A  temporary  adjournment  was  the  moment  of  quiet  before  an 
explosion.  Robert  Cross,  junior  pastor  of  the  church  at  Philadelphia, 
brought  in  a  protestation,  signed  by  several  members,  which  he  read  in 
the  presence  of  the  congregation  that  filled  the  galleries.  Indignant  that 
the  presbytery  of  New  Brunwsick  had  violated  the  act  of  the  synod  upon 
examination  of  candidates,  they  declared  that  they  themselves  would 
recognize  no  determination  of  the  synod  which  was  contrary  to  their  own 
judgment.  They  pronounced  the  members  of  the  offending  presbytery 
and  those  who  upheld  them  in  their  practices  to  have  forfeited  their 
right  to  sit  in  the  synod.  They  asserted  that  they,  the  protesters,  and 
those  who  should  join  them  were  the  true  Presbyterian  Church,  while 
the  persons  now  accused  in  this  protest  were  alone  to  be  looked  upon  as 
guilty  of  schism.  The  only  privileges  remaining  to  the  accused,  hereby 
denied  the  right  to  vote  or  to  defend  themselves,  were  confession  of  guilt 
and  satisfactory  assurance  of  future  obedience.  Thus  the  champions 
of  order,  protesting  loudly  their  loyalty  to  it,  committed  an  act  of 
supreme  disorder.^ 

The  New  Brunswick  men  were  not  disposed  to  be  excluded  without 
a  word  of  defense,  but  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  be  heard  in  the 
uproar.  The  moderator  left  his  chair.  There  was  a  rush  of  elders  to 
sign  the  protestation.  It  was  a  disorderly  marshaling  of  forces,  each 
party,  the  New  Side  and  the  Old  Side,  thinking  itself  in  the  majority. 
The  sympathies  of  the  galleries  were  vociferously  with  the  members 
protested  against.  When  it  was  found  that  the  New  Sides  were  in  slight 
minority,  they  and  a  large  part  of  the  congregation  left  the  meeting-house. 
Thus  without  a  formal  vote  and  without  the  semblance  of  a  trial  the 
men  who  had  a  year  before  protested  against  an  act  which  they  regarded 
as  exceeding  the  power  of  the  synod  were  now  excluded  from  membership 
in  it. 3 

The  disruption  of  1741  was  quite  as  appalling  a  fact  to  the  men  of 
that  generation  as  the  division  nearly  a  century  later  was  to  the  member- 
ship of  the  reunited  Presbyterian  Church  which  had  become  opulent, 

'  Gilbert  Tennent,  Examiner  Examined,  pp.  89,  121,  126;  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  Part  II, 
p.  147- 

'Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  155-58. 
3  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  Part  II,  pp.  147-61. 


THE  SCHISM  IN  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  75 

influential,  and  continental  in  its  jurisdiction.  How  lamentable  was  this 
first  division  of  forces,  with  all  the  resultant  alienation  and  dissipation 
of  energy  at  a  time  when  the  back  country  of  the  Middle  and  Southern 
Colonies  was  filling  up  with  a  population  overwhelmingly  Calvinistic, 
prevailingly  Scotch-Irish,  and  therefore  as  virile  as  it  was  turbulent! 
How  unfortunate  that  the  Presbyterian  synod  did  not  catch  the  new 
enthusiasm  of  the  day  and  press  forward  to  the  work  of  education  and 
unification!  But  better  strife  and  division  than  stagnation  and  death. 
The  sequel  will  show  that  the  minority,  thrown  out  of  the  synod  because 
too  zealous  to  be  altogether  decorous,  leaped  forward  to  do  the  work 
which  the  synod  had  rejected  and,  with  an  energy  born  of  the  Great 
Awakening,  magnificently  succeeded. 

While  the  disruption  had  such  momentous  meaning  to  the  infant 
church  and  to  all  observers  keenly  interested  in  religious  developments, 
the  actual  number  of  ministers  engaged  in  the  struggle  was  ridiculously 
small.  The  voting  of  lay  elders  may  be  disregarded,  as  they  generally 
followed  their  pastors.  The  whole  ministerial  membership  of  the  synod 
was  less  than  fifty.  All  were  required  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the 
synod,  but  the  distance  was  so  great  for  members  living  farthest  from 
Philadelphia  that  frequently  the  large  New  York  presbytery  was  not 
represented  at  all.  This  was  the  case  in  1741,  while  there  were  absences 
from  all  the  presbyteries  except  Donegal,  which  was  that  year  exercised 
over  the  cases  of  Creaghead  and  Alexander.  Accordingly  there  were 
but  twenty-six  ministers  present,  and  nine  of  these  were  from  Donegal. 
Of  these  twenty-six  members  twelve  were  protesters,  including  seven 
of  the  Donegal  ministers,  and  nine  were  protested  against,  including  the 
two  remaining  Donegal  ministers,  so  that  the  decision  really  fell  to  five 
men.  Of  these  five  moderates  two  were  sympathizers  with  the  revival, 
who  in  spite  of  their  conservative  misgivings  threw  in  their  lot  with  the 
protested  against,  and  three  were  critics  of  the  revival,  who  in  spite  of 
their  disgust  at  the  unparliamentary  procedure  of  the  protesters  either 
took  their  stand  with  them  or  bolted  for  home.  At  any  rate,  in  the  dis- 
orderly counting  of  supporters  the  conservatives  were  successful,  and 
the  advocates  of  revivalism  withdrew.' 

On  June  2,  the  day  following  the  disruption,  the  presbytery  of  New 
Brunswick  held  a  meeting  at  Philadelphia.  It  was  attended  not  only 
by  its  own  members  but  by  other  ministers  now  excluded  or  withdrawing 
from  the  synod.  The  first  minute  declared  that  the  exclusion  was  with- 
out just  ground.     An  appeal  to  the  public  in  answer  to  the  protestation 

'  Ibid.,  p.  167;   Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  155-58. 


76      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

was  decreed.  Undaunted,  they  resolved  to  form  themselves  into  two 
presbyteries.  The  excluded  members  at  first  took  their  expulsion 
to  be  a  finality.  They  assumed  the  state  of  an  independent  Presbyterian 
Church.  But  soon,  upon  reconsideration,  they  contended  that  they 
were  still  legally  members  of  the  synod  of  Philadelphia  and  entitled 
to  seats  in  it.  Then  their  own  temporary  supreme  judicatory  was  called 
the  meeting  of  the  conjunct-presbyteries.^ 

The  protestation  had  charged  the  accused  members  with  holding 
principles  ''diametrically  opposite"  to  the  doctrines  of  the  church.^ 
The  New  Brunwsick  men,  resenting  the  reflection  upon  their  orthodoxy, 
formally  declared  that  they  adhered  as  closely  and  fully  to  the  West- 
minster Confession  as  did  ever  the  synod  of  Philadelphia  in  any  of  its 
public  acts  concerning  it.^  The  protestation  had  further  charged  the 
presbytery  of  New  Brunswick  with  having  dissented  from  the  Presby- 
terian system  of  church  government,  divesting  the  judicatories  of  all 
authority.  At  their  first  meeting  after  the  schism  the  excluded  ministers 
declared  their  unanimous  adherence  to  the  Directory.  But  these  deliver- 
ances on  doctrine  and  government  must  be  interpreted  in  harmony  with 
the  New  Side  principle  that  the  church  does  not  possess  legislative  power. 
One  of  the  unpublished  sermons  of  Gilbert  Tennent  is  quite  as  em- 
phatic on  this  question  as  anything  that  was  ever  uttered  by  Jonathan 
Dickinson." 

Having  determined  matters  of  organization  and  declared  themselves 
on  doctrine  and  government,  the  reformers  were  ready  to  concert  meas- 
ures for  the  extension  of  the  revival  and  the  establishment  of  congre- 
gations devoted  to  the  cultivation  of  experimental  religion.  At  this 
meeting  in  June  petitions  were  received  from  a  great  number  of  congre- 
gations and  parts  of  congregations  that  were  favorable  to  the  revival. 
The  greater  number  were  vacancies,  most  numerous  in  the  district 
assigned  to  the  presbytery  of  Donegal,  but  some  were  as  far  distant  as 
the  James  River  in  Virginia.  Several  congregations,  already  served 
temporarily  by  New  Side  men,  appHed  for  appointments,  but  it  is  sig- 
nificant that  at  this  early  date  a  number  of  congregations  under  the 
charge  of  Old  Side  ministers,  members  of  the  Donegal  presbytery, 
besought  the  New  Brunswick  presbytery  to  send  them  preachers.  At 
Nottingham  Gilbert  Tennent  had  advised  his  hearers  to  seek  such  minis- 

^MS  Minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbytery  for  June  2,  1741. 
^Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  157. 

3  MS  Minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbytery  for  June  2,  1741. 
<  Gilbert  Tennent,  MS  of  sermon  on  James  4:12. 


THE  SCHISM  IN  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  77 

trations  as  were  helpful  to  them.  Now  they  were  acting  upon  his  advice, 
forgetful,  however,  of  the  limitation  which  he  had  set. 

In  addition  to  these  petitions  for  supplies  it  was  expected  that  pro- 
vision would  be  made  for  preaching  in  the  New  Building,  where  undoubt- 
edly this  meeting  of  the  presbytery  was  held.  The  purpose  of  the  great 
house  was  to  provide  an  undenominational  preaching-place  for  White- 
field  and  other  promoters  of  the  revival.  Whitefield  had  commended 
Tennent  and  his  associates,  and  they  had  been  the  most  active  in 
preaching  there,  though  it  cannot  be  supposed  that  before  the  schism 
there  was  an  organized  congregation.  Most  of  those  who  flocked  to 
the  New  Building  whenever  there  was  an  opportunity  to  enjoy  the  new 
ministry  of  life  and  feeling  had  been  converted  under  the  preaching 
of  Whitefield,  and  all  denominations  were  represented  among  them.' 
A  number  of  these  supporters  of  ardent  evangelism  who  were  Pres- 
byterian in  sentiment  now  permanently  withdrew  from  the  First 
Church,  and  they  were  joined  by  a  larger  number  of  others  in  forming  a 
separate  congregation.  At  this  meeting  of  the  presbytery  Finley, 
Treat,  and  Rowland  were  appointed  as  the  first  supplies  of  the  new  con- 
gregation.^ At  the  same  time,  in  congregational  meeting,  Gilbert  Ten- 
nent baptized  eight  Quakers. •J  Therefore  the  organization  of  this 
Presbyterian  congregation,  which  soon  became  and  long  remained  the 
most  influential  in  the  Presbyterian  communion,  may  be  dated  Wednes- 
day, June  3,  1 741. 

In  answer  to  the  supplications  from  vacancies  and  dissatisfied  con- 
gregations or  parts  of  congregations  appointments  were  made  for  itinerat- 
ing journeys  by  New  Side  evangelists.  The  meetings  were  to  be  held 
on  both  Sundays  and  week  days.  These  evangeUsts  were  James  Camp- 
bell, John  Rowland,  William  Tennent,  Jr.,  Richard  Treat,  David  Alex- 
ander, and  Samuel  Finley. 

James  Campbell,  the  probationer  who  in  1739  had  stopped  preaching 
for  a  season  because  of  the  conviction  that  he  was  unconverted,  was 
directed  to  make  a  circuit  of  sixteen  congregations,  mostly  within  the 
bounds  of  the  presbytery  of  Donegal.  He  was  sent  as  far  west  as  the 
frontier  town  of  Carlisle  and  as  far  east  as  Greenwich  in  Cohansey, 
New  Jersey. 4 

'  MS  Records  of  the  Second  Presbyterian  Church  for  May,  1743,  and  September 
25,  1746. 

'MS  Minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbytery  for  June  3,  1741. 
^Pennsylvania  Gazette,  June  11,  1741. 
<  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  5,  p.  42. 


78      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

John  Rowland  was  directed  to  follow  Campbell.  This  is  the  first 
notice  of  the  longer  itinerations  of  this  remarkably  awakening  preacher. 
Wherever  he  went  there  were  outbursts  of  feeling,  and  strong  men  were 
broken  down  under  the  new  consciousness  of  sin.  From  this  time  until 
the  removal  of  his  residence  from  Maidenhead  to  Charlestown,  Pennsyl- 
vania, he  was  occupied  with  these  evangelistic  journeys.  It  was  when 
thus  engaged  that  his  message  met  with  a  surprising  reception  at  New 
Providence.  In  the  space  of  two  months  the  awakened  were  led  through 
the  various  stages  of  conviction  and  conversion' — a  shorter  period  than 
had  generally  been  required  at  Maidenhead.  At  the  neighboring  settle- 
ment of  Charlestown  the  people  made  profession  of  various  denomina- 
tional beliefs,  but  all  was  in  vain  in  the  opinion  of  Rowland.  He  saw 
only  vileness  in  their  lives.  Here  too  he  met  with  success,  though  not 
so  marked  as  at  New  Providence.  As  the  result  of  a  great  ingathering 
the  united  churches  of  Charlestown  and  New  Providence  called  Rowland 
to  become  their  pastor.  He  died  at  Charlestown  in  1745,  universally 
esteemed.  Like  so  many  other  New  Side  evangelists,  he  died  in  the 
morning  of  life,  and,  like  theirs,  it  was  a  morning  of  strange  brilliancy. 
Long  after  in  the  region  of  Norriton  and  Providence  grandparents  told 
their  grandchildren  of  the  wonderful  days  of  Rowland.' 

The  tour  covering  the  widest  extent  of  country  was  assigned  to 
Samuel  Finley,  probationer.  He  was  to  begin  at  Nottingham  in  the 
Donegal  presbytery,  where  he  had  served  before  the  rupture,  to  pass 
through  Baltimore  county  in  Maryland,  then,  having  preached  at  Dover 
and  Lewes  in  Delaware,  to  cross  to  Cape  May  in  New  Jersey,  and,  com- 
pleting his  great  circuit,  to  preach  at  Greenwich  in  Cohansey,  the  final 
appointment  of  Campbell.  This  was  the  beginning  of  Finley's  suc- 
cesses in  South  Jersey.^  He  had  been  preceded  in  this  destitute  region 
by  Samuel  Blair,  Gilbert  Tennent,  and  Whitefield. 

The  protestation  had  operated  to  release  the  energy  of  these 
splendidly  gifted  young  zealots  who  with  the  afflatus  of  prophets  and 
the  martyr  spirit  of  apostles  made  the  journeys  outlined  for  them. 
The  Old  Sides,  by  excluding  so  violently  and  irregularly  the  young  and 
vigorous  preachers  of  the  New  Brunswick  party,  but  increased  their 
own  difficulties.    The  number  of  separations  was  far  greater  than  is 

'  Rowland,  A  Narrative  of  the  Revival  .  ...  in  ...  .  Hopewell,  Amwell,  and 
Maidenhead  ....  and  New  Providence;  Alexander,  Log  College,  pp.  245,  246; 
Muq)hy,  The  Presbytery  of  the  Log  College,  pp.  107,  108,  202-4;  Gilbert  Tennent,  A 
Funeral  Sermon,  p.  39. 

'  Brown,  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Churches  in  West  or  South  Jersey,  p.  19. 


THE  SCHISM  IN  THE  PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  79 

indicated  by  the  supplications  first  made  to  the  presbytery  of  New  Bruns- 
wick. There  were  divisions  in  nearly  all  the  congregations  in  the  four 
Old  Side  presbyteries.'  The  best  of  men  were  blinded,  not  so  much  by 
their  own  zeal  as  by  the  extravagant  language  which  had  been  used 
against  them.  According  to  the  protestation  the  doctrines  of  the  New 
Side  men  were  heretical,  their  government  anarchical,  and  their  revival 
spurious.  Therefore  the  young  evangelists  broke  in  upon  the  congre- 
gations of  ministers  who  had  developed  such  hostility  to  spiritual 
religion,  confident  that  they  were  delivering  sheep  from  wolves  and 
from  hireling  shepherds.^  While  we  may  assert  with  some  degree 
of  confidence  that  the  preachers  who  were  permanently  and  genuinely 
New  Side  men  had  never  before  the  disruption  of  the  church 
intruded  upon  their  brethren,  now  they  went  wherever  the  cry  of 
the  discontented  called  them.  The  conservatives  were  not  behind 
them  in  resort  to  intrusion,  for  the  Old  Side  presbyteries  sent  supphes 
to  the  congregations  in  their  bounds  whose  New  Side  pastors  had 
been  excluded  by  the  synod. ^  They  treated  the  excluded  ministers 
as  heretics  and  schismatics  now  barred  from  their  communion.  They 
attacked  them  in  the  press  with  a  virulence  which  had  not  been 
reached  before  in  their  most  objectionable  contributions.''  The  New 
Side  men,  though  always  charged  with  censoriousness,  were,  in  print 
at  least,  as  sober  and  dignified  as  their  opposers  were  violent.  The 
synod  thus  lost  all  influence  with  these  stirring  evangehsts.  Yet  it 
was  not  they  that  caused  the  divisions.  It  was  a  spontaneous  uprising 
among  the  people.  It  was  an  outburst  of  religious  feeling  against  the 
coldness  of  the  age. 

'  Webster,  op.  cit.,  pp.  185,  197. 
'  Boston  News-Letter,  September  23,  1742. 
J  Webster,  op.  cit.,  pp.  408,  446,  461. 

*  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  November  5,  1741;  August  26,  October  21,  December  8, 
1742;  Boston  Evening  Post,  April  2,  1744. 


CHAPTER  VII 
PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION 

The  period  extending  from  the  close  of  the  year  1 741  to  the  time  when 
Whitefield  was  again  itinerating  through  the  Middle  Colonies  in  the 
years  1745-46  was  a  period  of  expansion  and  organization.  It  was  then 
that  the  operations  of  the  Moravians  attracted  universal  attention. 
The  Second  Presbyterian  Church  of  Philadelphia  became  the  center  of 
New  Side  influence.  The  synod  of  New  York  was  organized.  New 
Side  missions  were  founded,  which  were  to  exercise  a  profound  influence 
on  world-wide  missions.  Schools  upon  the  model  of  the  Log  CoUege 
were  established.  Most  remarkable  of  all  was  the  extension  of  the 
revival  to  Virginia.  Thus  the  awakened  religious  life  did  not  confine 
its  expression  to  evangelistic  endeavor,  strictly  construed,  but  found 
new  channels  for  its  pent-up  powers  in  related  acti\'ities  of  an  ever- 
widening  range. 

I.  Zinzendorfs  Pennsylvania  synods. — What  Whitefield  was  to  the 
English-speaking  colonists  Zinzendorf  was  to  the  German.  And  as  the 
former  fraternized  with  Presbyterians,  Baptists,  Quakers,  and  Moravians, 
so  the  latter  in  1741  resigned  his  ofl&ce  of  bishop  of  the  Moravian  Church 
that  he  might  not  confine  his  testimony  to  one  denomination.^ 

When,  therefore,  Zinzendorf  landed  at  New  York  late  in  1741  and 
began  a  systematic  visitation  of  the  German  settlements  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, interest  in  the  Moravians,  keen  already  because  of  their  connection 
with  the  religious  awakening  in  Germany  and  England  and  their  mis- 
sionary successes  in  South  Africa,  was  heightened  by  the  visit  to  the 
Middle  Colonies  of  the  gifted  but  visionary  nobleman  who  stood  at  their 
head.^  Coming  in  the  spirit  of  Whitefield,  Zinzendorf  very  naturally 
desired  to  take  full  advantage  of  his  connection  with  the  Methodist 
leaders,  but  he  claimed  too  much  when  he  announced  that  his  brother, 
George  Whitefield,  was  a  son  of  their  church,  brought  to  the  blood  of 
Jesus  by  Peter  Boehler.^ 

'  Sachse,  German  Sectarians,  p.  460. 

'  Boston  News-Letier,  September  25,  1740;  New  England  Weekly  Journal,  Novem- 
ber 4,  1740;  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  February  24,  1743. 
i  South  Carolina  Gazette,  August  30,  1742. 

80 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  8i 

The  student  of  the  Great  Awakening  finds  striking  illustrations  of  the 
syncretic  tendencies  of  the  Moravians  of  that  period.  One  of  their 
missionaries  in  the  province  of  New  York  testified  in  court  that  he  had 
not  separated  from  the  Church  of  England  by  joining  the  Moravian 
brotherhood,  for  the  Moravians  were  united  with  all  Protestants.* 
Just  so  Zinzendorf  was  a  Lutheran  minister  and  a  Moravian  minister 
at  the  same  time.  The  Moravians  at  Bethlehem  endeavored  to  con- 
ciliate the  Siebentagers  of  Ephrata  by  observing  both  Saturday  and 
Sunday  as  days  of  rest.^  As  Zinzendorf  found  a  bewildering  confusion 
of  religious  beliefs  among  the  Germans  he  desired  to  unite  the  evangel- 
istic efforts  of  the  various  sects.^  Therefore  he  sought  to  form  "one 
congregation  of  God  in  the  Spirit,"  though  its  members  were  to  retain 
their  denominational  affiliations.  To  this  end  a  synod  was  called  to 
meet  at  Germantown  on  January  12,  1742.  There  came  to  it  Lutherans, 
German  Reformed,  Mennonites,  Schwenkf elders,  Dunkers,  Sieben- 
tagers, Separatists,  one  hermit,  and  Moravians.''  Seven  of  these  synods 
were  held.  Though  the  purpose  was  worthy  of  all  praise,  Zinzendorf 
failed  to  make  the  distinction  between  ecclesiastical  acts,  like  baptism 
and  ordination,  which  were  proper  to  denominational  organizations 
alone,  and  those  common  endeavors  which  could  be  undertaken  without 
violating  the  distinctive  beliefs  of  the  various  bodies  represented.  The 
result  was  that  after  the  third  meeting  four  of  the  denominations  with- 
drew from  the  movement.  The  spirit  of  contention,  quieted  for  a  season, 
broke  out  again.s 

The  result  of  the  mission  of  Zinzendorf  was  thus  a  disappointment 
to  him.  Nevertheless  it  was  highly  beneficial  to  the  religious  interests 
of  the  Germans.  Many  of  the  Separatists  in  Permsylvania,  religious 
enthusiasts  without  denominational  organization,  when  called  from 
their  isolation  by  Zinzendorf,  joined  the  Moravian  brotherhood,  adding 
strength  to  that  body  of  earnest  evangelists  and  missionaries.^  Con- 
versions under  the  preaching  of  the  count  and  his  co-workers  were 
numerous.  After  he  had  served  the  Lutheran  Church  at  Philadelphia 
for  the  greater  part  of  a  year  a  separation  took  place,^  and  the  Moravians 

'  Ecclesiastical  Records  of  the  State  of  New  York,  pp.  2851-54. 

'  Sachse,  German  Sectarians,  p.  440.  ^  Hid.,  p.  442. 

*  Brumbaugh,  A  History  of  the  German  Baptist  Brethren,  p.  474. 

s  Ibid.,  p.  484.  '  Sachse,  op.  cit.,  p.  423. 

'This  was  occasioned  by  the  arrival  in  1742  of  Henry  Melchior  Muhlenberg  as  a 
missionary  sent  from  Halle,  Germany.  Spangenberg,  Life  of  Count  Zinzetidorf,  p.  298; 
Bolles,  Pennsylvania  Province  and  State,  II,  378. 


82      TEE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

of  the  congregation  organized  according  to  the  Herrnhut  pattern.^ 
Indeed  both  the  Lutheran  and  German  Reformed  authorities  in  Europe 
were  stimulated  by  the  labors  of  Zinzendorf  in  America  to  send  superin- 
tendents and  pastors  to  their  destitute  coreligionists.^  Even  the  Bunkers 
found  the  suggestion  of  their  annual  meetings  in  the  synods  of  Zinzen- 
dorf.3  Thus  on  the  one  hand  the  tendency  to  excessive  individualism 
among  the  Germans  was  checked,  and  on  the  other  aggressive  church 
extension  was  undertaken  through  emulation  of  Moravian  aggressive- 
ness. 

Successful  as  were  the  Moravian  itinerants  among  the  Germans  and 
measurably  even  among  the  Enghsh-speaking  people,  their  master 
passion  here  as  in  other  lands  was  the  prosecution  of  missions  among  the 
heathen.  The  story  is  a  long  chapter  of  heroic  efforts,  cruelly  obstructed, 
particularly  at  the  very  first,  in  the  province  of  New  York.  Christian 
Ranch  had  opened  his  mission  at  Schecomoco  in  Dutchess  county. 
New  York,  in  1 740,  and  great  was  his  triumph  to  be  able  to  present  three 
converts  at  the  second  of  Zinzendorf's  synods.^  But  Horsmanden,  of 
the  New  York  council,  defended  the  provincial  law  which  was  enacted 
against  the  missionaries  as  vagrant  preachers  and  popish  emissaries  on 
the  ground  that  they  were  suspected  of  endeavoring  to  seduce  the  Indians 
from  their  fidelity  to  His  Majesty,  and  that  they,  like  all  the  German 
Sectarians  and  the  Quakers,  refused  to  take  the  oath  to  the  government.^ 
The  report  of  the  sheriff  and  the  examination  of  the  missionaries  before 
the  council,  however,  amply  refuted  the  charges  of  wrong-doing.^  Yet 
the  missionaries  were  ordered  to  desist  from  further  teaching  and  to 
leave  the  province.^  Fortunately  the  province  of  Pennsylvania  was 
still  liberal,  and  so  was  Connecticut  in  this  respect.  In  these  colonies 
the  Moravians  continued  their  missionary  activity  when  for  a  time  New 
York  was  closed  by  a  wall  of  bigotry. 

2.  Calvinistic  recoil  from  Moravian  catholicity. — Whitefield  had 
described  Gilbert  Tennent  as  one  of  the  most  catholic  men  he  knew,  but 
Tennent's  catholicity  was  not  broad  enough  to  include  the  Moravians. 
Zinzendorf,  on  his  journey  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia,  was  invited 
to  a  conference  at  New  Brunswick.  The  oracular,  paradoxical,  mystical 
language  of  the  count  was  exasperating  enough  to  one  of  Tennent's 

'  Ritter,  History  of  the  Moravian  Church  in  Philadelphia,  p.  19. 

*  Kuhns,  The  German  and  Swiss  Settlements  of  Colonial  Pennsylvania,  pp.  164,  165. 
3  Brumbaugh,  op.  cit.,  p.  477. 

*  Sachse,  op.  cit.,  p.  466.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  2851. 
s  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2906.  ">  Ibid.,  p.  2861. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  83 

training.  The  mental  processes  of  the  two  men  were  so  different,  and 
both  were  men  of  such  determination,  that  neither  could  appreciate  the 
truth  for  which  the  other  stood  or  realize  their  essential  unity.  Based 
upon  the  statements  of  the  count  at  New  Brunswick,  an  unfavorable 
estimate  of  the  Moravians  was  drawn  up  and  published  in  book  form. 
This  was  followed  by  another.'  Zinzendorf  answered  through  the  news- 
papers, and  Tennent  continued  the  debate  through  the  same  medium.^ 

Calvinistic  criticism  of  the  mystic  philosophy  of  the  leader  was 
aroused  to  this  public  protest  by  the  methods  of  evangelism  adopted  by 
the  brotherhood  and  the  directions  given  to  religious  seekers.  The 
Moravians  made  use  of  lay  itinerants  who  traveled  through  the  country 
with  smiling  faces  and  affable  manners,  warmly  expressing  sympathy 
with  all  Christians  but  drawing  converts  to  their  own  communion.^ 
These  methods,  in  the  opinion  of  Gilbert  Tennent,  were  divisive  and 
dangerous.  ,IIewas  too  much  of  a  Presbyterian  to  tolerate  lay  preaching 
and  was  quite  as  insistent  upon  an  educated  ministry  as  were  his  Old 
Side  antagonists.  The  Moravians  made  little  use  of  the  law  in  dealing 
with  the  unconverted.  They  did  not  consider  the  prolonged  distresses 
attending  law-work  necessary.  In  this,  strangely  enough,  they  were 
at  one  with  the  Old  Side  Presbyterians.  The  brotherhood  defined 
faith  as  persuasion,  and  in  this  agreed  with  the  Scotch  Seceders.  The 
Moravians  believed  in  perfection,  as  did  the  Quakers.  Therefore  the 
Moravians  were  described  by  the  Calvinistic  supporters  of  the  revival 
as  Antinomian,  Arminian,  and  Quakerish  in  principle.  It  was  intimated 
that  their  removal  from  Romanism  was  slight. ^ 

Contact  with  a  strange  people  who  had  been  among  the  most  active 
promoters  of  the  revival  in  the  country  of  its  origin,  yet  whose  doctrines 
were  so  foreign  to  his  own,  and  whose  methods  threatened  to  divide  his 
own  following,  persuaded  Gilbert  Tennent,  erroneously,  as  a  student  of 
this  world  movement  must  conclude,  that  his  proper  affiliation  was  with 
the  men  of  his  own  race  and  doctrinal  training,  from  whom  he  had 

'  Gilbert  Tennent,  Some  Accaunt  of  the  Principles  of  the  Moravians,  and  sermon  on 
Rev.  2,-Z- 

*  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  May  19,  June  30,  July  7,  1 743.  The  account  of  Zinzendorf 
was  contributed  by  Boehler,  who  remained  in  America  after  the  departure  of  the 
count. 

3  Gilbert  Tennent  in  a  sermon  published  with  Some  Account  of  the  Principles  of 
the  Moravians,  pp.  52,  54,  65,  66;  Livingston  in  Independence  Reflector,  January  4, 
1753- 

*  Gilbert  Tennent,  op.  cit.,  p.  61. 


I 


84      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

lately  separated.  Early  in  1742  he  wrote  his  letter  of  lamentation  over 
the  schism  in  the  Presbyterian  Church  to  Jonathan  Dickinson,  the  most 
eminent  supporter  of  the  revival  still  in  the  membership  of  the  synod  of 
Philadelphia.  The  letter  has  been  called  a  recantation.  For  months 
Tennent  had  been  in  an  agony  of  spiritual  desertion.  He  regretted 
his  mismanagement  of  the  debate  in  the  synod;  he  felt  a  disposition  to 
fall  on  his  knees  and  beg  both  parties  to  be  at  peace.  After  his  collision 
with  the  Moravians  he  was  apprehensive  of  the  danger  in  divisive  meas- 
ures as  practiced  by  them.  The  news  from  New  England  also  disquieted 
him.  The  extravagances  of  his  friend  Davenport  had  subjected  the 
revival  to  ridicule.  Tennent  in  his  letter  of  lamentation  gives  a  list- of 
these  objectionable  practices,  but  the  only  one  properly  censurable  was 
Davenport's  unfortunate  habit  of  pronouncing  by  name  individual 
ministers  unconverted.'' 

David  Evans,  Old  Side  Presbyterian,  asserted  in  print  that  wherein 
Tennent  condemned  Davenport  he  passed  sentence  upon  himself.  Evans 
suggested  that  the  letter  of  Tennent  carried  "ill  designs  under  a  new 
mask."^  A  New  England  opposer  arrayed  "Gilbert  against  Tennent," 
making  charges  similar  to  those  of  Evans.  The  publication  of  Tennent's 
lament  inspired  him  to  explain  that  it  was  the  manner  of  performing 
what  he  still  considered  a  duty  that  he  regretted  as  mismanagement. ^ 
The  storm  of  criticism  reawakened  his  combative  spirit,  but  he  soon 
returned  to  his  plea  for  harmony.  He  pursued  his  new  aim  with  the 
same  whole-hearted  determination  which  he  had  previously  given  to  the 
spread  of  the  revival. 

That  the  essential  cleavage  in  colonial  society  on  the  question  of 
religion  did  not  follow  the  lines  of  race  and  inherited  creed  but  was 
determined  by  individual  attitude  to  the  new  evangel  was  demonstrated 
by  an  exciting  occurrence  in  the  spring  of  1742.  This  was  the  famous 
trial  of  William  Tennent,  Jr.,  in  April,  at  Trenton,  before  the  malignant 
chief  justice  of  New  Jersey.  It  seems  almost  incredible  that  a  minister 
who  inspired  all  who  knew  him  intimately,  among  them  the  Hon.  Elias 
Boudinot,  his  biographer,  with  veneration  as  for  a  man  of  extraordinary 
saintliness  should  be  subjected  to  the  indignity  of  standing  trial  on  the 
charge  of  perjury.  The  more  incredible  would  it  be,  if  one  were  unac- 
quainted with  other  examples  of  partisan  hostility  in  colonial  days,  that 
this  trial  was  in  effect  a  retrial  of  John  Rowland  on  the  charge  of  horse 

'  Boston  News-Letter,  July  22,  1742. 
'Pennsylvania  Gazette,  August  26,  1742. 
3  Boston  News-Letter,  September  23,  1742. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  85 

stealing — the  very  Rowland  who  had  led  the  reformation  at  the  neigh- 
boring town  of  IVIaidenhead  and  who  was  then  faming  through  the 
adjoining  province  in  a  blaze  of  glory.  The  evidence  clearly  proved  the 
innocence  of  Rowland  and  the  truth  of  the  alibi  which  Tennent  had 
furnished  him,  yet  the  acquittal  appeared  to  the  saint  of  Freehold,  whose 
whole  life  was  filled  with  what  he  judged  to  be  divine  interpositions,  as 
nothing  less  than  miraculous.'  Gilbert  Tennent  charged  the  opposers 
of  the  revival  with  joining  the  profane  in  the  persecution  of  Rowland 
and  greatly  exulted  in  the  thoroughness  of  the  vindication  of  both  his 
brother  and  his  friend.^  Even  this  experience  did  not  quench  his  new 
passion  for  Presbyterian  Church  unity. 

3.  The  Second  Presbyterian  Church  of  Philadelphia. — Though  Gilbert 
Tennent,  the  very  soul  of  his  party,  was  exerting  all  his  powers  of  master- 
ful leadership  to  reconcile  the  contending  factions  within  the  synod  of 
Philadelphia,  for  the  New  Brunswick  men  claimed  still  to  be  members, 
he  evidently  recognized  that  it  was  quite  impossible  to  drive  the  demon- 
strative admirers  of  Whitefield,  who  had  put  themselves  as  a  congrega- 
tion under  the  charge  of  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick,  into  the 
chilling  atmosphere  of  the  old  First  Church.  Such  a  course  would  have 
been  disadvantageous  both  to  revivalism  and  to  Presbyterianism,  for 
the  new  congregation  was  speedily  to  become  the  leading  church  of  the 
denomination  and  one  of  the  greatest  in  the  country.  Philadelphia  was 
and  is  the  capital  city  of  American  Presbyterianism.  The  old  First 
Church,  though  originally  congregational  in  polity  and  not  actually  the 
oldest  Presbyterian  church  in  the  Middle  Colonies,  nevertheless  gave 
its  name  to  the  first  presbytery  and  the  first  synod  and  is  appropriately 
regarded  as  the  mother  church  of  the  denomination.  What  the  First 
Church  was  to  the  Old  Side  Presbyterians  the  Second  Church  was  to  the 
New  Side.  "No  church  ever  had  more  distinguished  ruling  elders  from 
the  old  times  down  to  its  later  days."^  It  was  a  power  in  the  political 
and  social  life  not  only  of  the  city  but  of  the  province  and  country." 
The  names  of  its  Hodges,  Bayards,  Boudinots,  Hazards,  Eastburns, 
Redmonds,  Bourns,  Shippens,  and  Grants  were  widely  known  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  many  of  them  in  the  nineteenth  as  well. 

■  Green,  "The  Trial  of  the  Rev.  William  Tennent,"  Princeton  Review,  July,  1868; 
Alexander,  Log  College,  pp.  127-34. 

'  Gilbert  Tennent,  Examiner  Examined,  p.  127. 

J  Nevin,  History  of  the  Presbytery  of  Philadelphia,  p.  300. 

*  Beadle,  The  Old  and  the  New,  p.  43. 


*^ 


86      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

The  historian  of  this  venerable  church  dates  its  organization  as  a 
Presbyterian  society  in  the  year  1743,  when  Gilbert  Tennent  became 
its  pastor/  but  in  reality  its  distinct  existence  as  a  congregation  began, 
as  already  shown,  in  June,  1741.  The  minutes  of  the  presbytery  for  the 
next  two  years  show  that  in  answer  to  repeated  supplications  nearly  all 
the  great  lights  of  the  party  were  sent  as  supplies,  some  of  them  as 
stated  suppHes.^  Finally,  in  May,  1743,  a  call  to  Gilbert  Tennent  was 
brought  into  the  presbytery.  In  August  commissioners  presented  their 
arguments,  those  from  New  Brunswick  for  his  continuance  there,  and 
those  from  Philadelphia  for  his  removal  to  that  field  of  greater  influence. 
He  himself  desired  the  dissolution  of  his  former  pastoral  relation,  and 
the  presbytery  acceded  to  his  request  in  view  of  the  difficult  situation 
at  Philadelphia.3 

How  these  transactions  were  regarded  by  the  Old  Side  opposers  of 
the  revival  is  reported  by  the  witty  but  unscrupulous  Fleet,  of  the 
Boston  Evening  Post.  In  their  view  Gilbert  Tennent  had  gone  to  a 
congregation  of  Separatists,  using  the  term  in  the  opprobrious  sense  of 
an  irregular  and  unrecognized  organization.  Furthermore,  this  congre- 
gation had  taken  possession  of  the  "great  Babel,"  built  for  Whitefield, 
though  the  Moravians  claimed  the  better  right  to  it.  A  running  fire 
of  criticism  on  Tennent,  supplied  by  Old  Side  enemies  in  Philadelphia,  was 
maintained  by  this  newspaper.  They  soon  noted  a  change  in  the  pastor 
himself.  Tennent,  it  was  said,  had  "cast  off  his  native  clumsiness," 
and  from  a  "slouch"  had  become  a  "beau"  with  a  "polite  and  courtly 
air. "4  It  is  quite  true  that  he  now  yielded  to  the  taste  of  polite  society 
not  only  in  dress  but  in  the  delivery  of  his  sermons.  His  usual  method 
in  the  time  of  his  itinerations,  when  as  a  forceful  preacher  he  was  unsur- 
passed, was  that  of  extempore  speaking.  In  Philadelphia  he  became 
so  wedded  to  his  notes  that  in  his  later  years  he  negatived  the  choice  of 
a  colleague  by  his  congregation  because  the  people  were  so  immoderately 
desirous  of  extempore  preaching.  The  candidate  thus  opposed  was 
George  Dufiield,  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  powerful  a  preacher  as  Tennent 
had  been  in  his  prime.  Evidently  the  people  of  this  congregation,  active, 
emotional,  and  demonstrative,  retained  Whitefield's  aversion  to  reading 
as  a  method  of  pulpit  delivery.s 

'  Beadle,  The  Old  and  the  New,  p.  11. 

'  MS  Records  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbytery  for  May  29  and  August  2,  1742; 
MS  Records  of  the  Second  Presbyterian  Church  for  July  7,  1742. 

^  MS  Records  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbytery. 

*  Boston  Evening  Post,  November  14,  December  12,  1743;  January  16,  April  2, 
1744. 

s  Gilbert  Tennent,  MS  on  Use  of  Notes,  1762;  Alexander,  Log  College,  pp.  58,  59. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  87 

Thus  from  the  multitude  of  Whitefield's  converts  and  supporters 
a  goodly  company  of  the  most  ardent  had  put  themselves  as  a  distinct 
congregation  under  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick.  A  constantly 
growing  membership  proved  that  Whitefield's  spirit  was  in  the  new 
leader  and  his  workers,  but  a  surprise  came  to  this  congregation  after  it 
had  been  eight  years  in  possession  of  the  great  house  of  worship.  On 
January  25,  1749,  the  report  was  made  at  a  congregational  meeting 
by  the  trustees  of  the  New  Building  that  "agreeable  to  their  deed  of 
trust"  they  had  decided  to  convey  the  title  to  the  trustees  of  the  public 
academy  "in  trust  for  the  uses  and  purposes  in  their  original  deed 
expressed."  One  of  the  conditions  of  the  transfer  was  that  Mr.  Tennent 
and  his  congregation  were  to  have  free  use  of  the  New  Building  as  a 
place  of  worship  for  three  years.  This  concession  to  the  peculiar  rela- 
tion existing  between  this  people  and  their  hero,  Whitefield,  must  have 
seemed  to  them  less  than  the  equity  of  the  case  demanded,  yet  they 
could  make  no  protest,  for  it  was  one  of  the  original  articles  of  agreement 
that  this  great  brick  monument  to  New  Light  evangelism  was  not  to 
be  devoted  to  the  exclusive  use  of  any  one  denomination.^ 

This  unforeseen  difficulty  stirred  a  man  of  Gilbert  Tennent 's  metal 
to  determined  effort  to  erect  a  monument  to  New  Side  Presbyterianism 
surpassing  in  beauty  and  churchly  dignity  the  great  auditorium  of  which 
he  was  soon  to  be  dispossessed.^  But  many  of  his  people,  warm  advo- 
cates of  emotional  religion  though  they  were,  were  Methodists  and 
Quakers  in  their  hostility  to  ornament  and  churchliness  in  religious 
architecture,  just  as  they  favored  plairmess  of  dress  and  speech.  Tennent 
would  call  his  meeting-house  a  church  and  suit  the  building  to  the  name, 
braving  the  ridicule  of  Anghcans  without  and  the  disgust  of  Methodists 
within.  Furthermore,  their  New  Light  energy  had  not  yet  brought  them' 
large  wealth.  Franklin,  who  was  a  trustee  of  the  projected  academy 
and  also  of  the  New  Building,  suggested  that  the  pastor  appeal  to  the 
citizens  generally  for  subscriptions. ^  This  Tennent  did,  throwing  his 
unconquerable  will  into  the  work.  The  result  was  that  the  gifts  of 
outsiders  far  exceeded  the  contributions  of  the  members.-*  Nearly  all 
the  officers  of  the  province,  county,  and  city  subscribed  to  this  public 
enterprise.  The  liberal-minded  of  all  denominations  contributed.^  It 
was,  however,  to  the  ministers  of  his  own  party  that  Tennent  looked  for 

'  MS  Records  of  the  Second  Presbyterian  Church. 

^  Gilbert  Tennent,  Divine  Government,  pp.  51-53,  66-68. 

3  Franklin,  Autobiography,  pp.  156,  157. 

•»  Gilbert  Tennent,  MS  Remonstrance  of  1762,  p.  19. 

s  MS  of  Subscription  List;  Gilbert  Tennent,  Divine  Government,  p.  55. 


88      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

the  aid  that  should  give  success.  Subscriptions  were  taken,  accordingly, 
at  Neshaminy,  Maidenhead,  Abington,  White  Clay  Creek,  and  Fagg's 
Manor.  With  what  elevation  of  spirit  the  pastor  opened  the  new  house 
in  June,  1752,  with  two  sermons!  He  saw  a  divine  providence  in  all  the 
train  of  surprising  events  that  began  with  the  formation  of  this  society. 
There  was  providence  too  in  the  donations  of  large-souled  gentlemen 
who  were  above  every  suggestion  of  bigotry  and  blind  party  spirit. 
Though  the  Christian  world  was  divided  into  parties  which  too  often 
censured  the  conduct  of  their  brethren,  there  was  really  one  visible 
Kingdom  of  Christ  with  many  branches.  Every  true  Christian,  there- 
fore, should  rejoice  in  the  success  of  every  society  that  retained  the 
fundamental  principles.  Tennent  in  conclusion  summarized  the  law 
and  gospel  in  humility,  charity,  and  kindly  feeling.^ 

4.  The  New  Side  synod  of  New  York. — The  narrative  of  the  early 
formative  years  of  the  foremost  New  Side  congregation  has  taken  us  in 
time  beyond  the  organization  of  another  body  which  had  even  greater 
significance  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  New  Side  principles.  The 
synod  of  New  York  was  formed  in  1745,  but  the  efforts  in  the  preceding 
years  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  its  organization  must  first  be  recounted. 

In  the  year  1742,  before  the  meeting  of  the  synod  of  Philadelphia, 
George  Gillespie,  supporter  of  the  revival  but  stickler  for  order  and 
regularity,  published  a  letter  addressed  to  the  presbytery  of  New  York. 
He  appealed  to  the  members  of  that  presbytery  to  be  present  at  the  com- 
ing meeting  at  Philadelphia.  The  conjunct-presbyteries  were  to  meet 
at  the  same  time  and  place.  His  contention  was  that  the  illegal  protest 
ought  to  be  dropped  and  all  members  "allowed  to  meet  together  judi- 
cially." He  defined  a  protest  as  an  appeal  of  a  minority  from  the  action 
of  the  majority  to  God's  bar,  but  the  protestation  of  1741  was  the 
condemnation  of  the  minority  by  the  majority  without  a  trial.  He 
traced  the  beginning  of  the  division  to  the  " antiscriptural,  lording  act" 
of  1738  requiring  synodical  examination  of  candidates.^ 

The  synod  of  Philadelphia  met  in  May,  1742.  A  greater  number  of 
ministers  from  the  New  York  presbytery  attended  the  meeting  than  had 
ever  come  before.  The  protesters  claimed  that  they  and  those  who  had 
acted  with  them  were  the  synod  of  1741.  They  refused  to  be  called 
to  account  by  absent  members  or  by  any  judicatory  on  earth.  Six  of 
the  seven  ministers  present  from  the  New  York  presbytery,  one  Old 
Side  minister,  and  several  elders  joined  in  a  protest  against  the  illegal 

'  Gilbert  Tennent,  Divine  Government,  pp.  i,  6,  45,  51-56,  66-69. 

'  Gillespie,  A  Letter  to  the  ...  .  Presbytery  of  New  York,  pp.  3,  15,  18,  22. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  89 

«xclusion  of  the  year  before  and  against  the  refusal  of  the  protesters  of 
the  previous  year  to  have  the  legaHty  of  their  protest  determined  by  the 
present  synod.  They  declared  that  the  members  excluded  by  protest, 
in  violation  of  scriptural  rule  and  Presbyterian  usage,  were  still  members 
of  the  synod.  Finally  they  made  solemn  declaration  against  all  the 
pamphlets  published  in  these  parts  which  reflected  on  the  work  of  divine 
grace  which  had  been  carried  on  so  wonderfully  in  many  congregations.^ 

These  efforts  in  1742  were  futile,  and  the  rent  was  the  wider  in  1743. 
The  real  obstacle  to  reconciliation  was  the  spirit  of  division  in  the  local 
churches  which  was  sweeping  over  them  like  a  whirlwind.  All  the  New 
Side  ministers  could  not  have  stayed  it,  had  they  joined  in  Gilbert 
Tennent's  lament.  As  it  advanced,  the  Old  Side  ministers  became  more 
embittered,  and  their  public  attacks  were  the  more  abusive.^  Then 
Gilbert  Tennent  replied  that  when  ministers  conspired  to  blacken  the 
revival  and  brand  it  with  terms  of  contempt  he  did  not  see  how  God- 
fearing church  members  could  sit  under  their  ministrations.^  Therefore 
the  possibility  of  reconciliation  was  more  remote  in  1 743  and  1 744  than 
it  was  before. 

In  May,  1745,  three  commissioners  came  as  representatives  of  the 
presbytery  of  New  York.  They  requested  the  consent  of  the  old  synod 
for  the  erection  of  a  new  one^ — the  two  bodies  to  act  in  mutual  concert 
and  brotherly  kindness.  The  synod  replied  that  the  withdrawal  of  the 
New  York  brethren  was  without  just  ground,  yet  they  would  maintain 
charitable  affections  toward  them.^ 

On  September  19,  1745,  the  synod  of  New  York  was  organized  at 
Elizabethtown,  New  Jersey.  Nine  ministers  of  the  presbytery  of  New 
York  were  present,  nine  from  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick,  and 
four  from  the  New  Side  presbytery  of  New  Castle.  A  testimony  to  the 
work  of  God's  glorious  grace  carried  on  in  these  parts  of  the  land  was 
unanimously  adopted  by  the  synod.  The  fundamental  articles  of  syn- 
odical  union  are  of  special  significance  as  attempting  a  solution  of  ques- 
tions upon  which  the  radical  and  moderate  supporters  of  the  revival 
had  not  been  in  entire  agreement. s 

'  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  159-62. 

» Boston  Evening  Post,  July  26,  November  i,  1742;  January  10,  1743;  Pennsyl- 
vania Gazette,  August  26,  October  21,  1742;  December  8,  1743;  Boston  News-Letter, 
October  28,  1742. 

^Pennsylvania  Gazette,  August  26,  1742. 

4  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  175-79. 

s  Ibid.,  pp.  232-34. 


90      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

The  first  article  reaffirmed  the  adopting  act  of  1729,  by  which  the 
Westminster  Confession  was  accepted  as  an  excellent  statement  of  the 
Calvinistic  system,  without  binding  the  candidates  for  the  ministry 
to  agreement  with  the  verbal  statement  of  any  single  article  of  the  con- 
fession. That  act  denied  the  legislative  power  of  the  synod  and  made 
the  Scriptures  the  supreme  law  of  the  church.  Thus  the  New  Side 
synod  was  established  on  the  basis  of  progressive  orthodoxy.'  This  was 
in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  whole  evangelical  revival,  whether 
in  Germany,  Great  Britain,  or  America,  to  put  the  emphasis  on  life,  con- 
duct, and  experience,  to  throw  off  the  shackles  of  formal  statements  of 
belief  adopted  in  past  time,  and  to  make  possible  the  restatement  of 
doctrines  with  more  ample  recognition  of  principles  brought  to  the  fore 
by  this  world-wide  quickening.^ 

By  the  second  article  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  final  authority 
in  matters  of  discipline  was  attempted.  This  had  been  a  weak  point  in 
the  argument  of  Jonathan  Dickinson  in  1722  and  of  Gilbert  Tennent  in 
1739.  They  had  both  sought  a  constitutional  limitation  by  which  the 
individual  and  the  minority  were  to  be  protected  from  the  tyranny  of 
the  majority.  In  1722  Dickinson  restricted  ecclesiastical  censures  to 
cases  of  heresy  and  scandal.^  In  1 739  Tennent  in  the  name  of  the  presby- 
tery of  New  Brunswick  refused  to  obey  two  acts  of  the  synod  regarded 
as  illegal  and  tyrannical.  Now  it  was  decided  that  when  a  member 
could  not  in  conscience  abide  by  a  determination  of  the  majority  and, 
the  synod  was  not  able  to  make  concession  to  his  scruples,  judging  the 
determination  essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  churches,  the  dissenting 
member  promised  peaceably  to  withdraw  from  the  synod.  Distinction 
was  thus  made  between  the  circumstantial  and  the  essential.  Gilbert 
Tennent  always  maintained  that  the  rules  of  the  synod,  violated  by  the 
New  Brunswick  men,  were  upon  circumstantial  matters.^ 

The  two  remaining  articles  promised  the  avoidance  of  divisive 
methods,  no  condemnation  of  ministers  by  other  means  than  those  pre- 

'Briggs,  American  Preshyteriamsm,  pp.  269-72;  Gillett,  History  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church,  I,  88-90. 

^  Jonathan  Edwards  was  the  philosopher  and  theologian  of  the  Great  Awakening. 
Bellamy  and  Hopkins  were  his  successors,  uniting  Calvinism  with  the  pietistic  and 
humanitarian  spirit. 

2  Dickinson,  Sermon  Preached  at  the  Opening  of  the  Synod,  p.  21. 

*  Gilbert  Tennent,  Irenicum,  p.  99.  Among  the  Tennent  manuscripts  is  a  carefully- 
prepared  sermon  for  a  presbyterial  meeting  on  Christ  as  the  only  lawmaker.  Its 
date  is  about  1753,  but  the  same  theory  appears  in  the  writings  of  Tennent,  Blair,  and 
Gillespie  before  1745.  The  contest  between  the  presbytery  and  synod  was  on  govern- 
ment, not  on  doctrine,  but  the  same  principle  applies  to  both. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  91 

scribed  in  the  Directory,  no  granting  of  supplies  outside  of  presbyterial 
bounds  to  parties  separating  from  Presbyterian  and  Congregational 
churches,  and  the  maintenance  of  correspondence  with  the  synod  of 
Philadelphia. '  There  was  no  re-enactment  of  the  rule  requiring  synodical 
examination  of  candidates,  regarded  by  all  supporters  of  the  Log  College 
as  illegal.  On  the  contrary,  there  was  a  distinct  agreement  that  all 
possessing  a  competent  degree  of  ministerial  knowledge,  orthodox  in 
doctrine,  regular  in  life,  diligent  to  promote  vital  godliness,  and  willing 
to  submit  to  the  discipline,  were  to  be  cheerfully  admitted  to  this  union. 
Several  ministers,  trained  at  the  Log  College,  who  would  have  been  barred 
from  membership  in  the  old  synod  by  its  law  enacted  in  hostility  to  that 
school,  were  constituent  members  of  the  new  synod,  and  others  were 
to  be  admitted,  until  death  claimed  in  1746  the  incomparable  teacher  of 
zealous  evangelists. 

5.  Missions  to  the  heathen. — The  new  fire  would  have  flashed  like 
powder  and  gone  out  but  for  organizations  such  as  have  been  described. 
They  gathered  the  converts,  maintained  the  new  ideals,  and  sent  out 
men  of  splendid  enthusiasm  to  extend  the  Great  Awakening  among 
peoples  and  in  regions  not  reached  before.  The  new  birth  of  religion 
throughout  the  world  resulted  in  the  establishment  of  modern  missions. 
Accordingly  in  America  missions  to  the  heathen  were  undertaken  as  a 
direct  result  of  the  Great  Awakening.  A  glance  will  be  given  to  the 
efforts  in  behalf  of  the  negro  and  then  a  more  extended  account  of  the 
missions  to  the  Indian,  which  form  an  important  stage  in  the  develop- 
ment of  modern  missions. 

Although  the  first  German  immigrants  to  Pennsylvania,  straight  from 
the  home  of  Pietism,  spoke  out  against  slavery,  the  first  powerful  cham- 
pion of  the  black  man  was  Whitefield.  He  addressed  words  of  special 
tenderness  to  the  negroes.  A  new  appreciation  of  a  common  humanity 
came  to  whites  and  blacks  as  they  wept  together.  Though  efforts  were 
made  in  different  colonies  in  behalf  of  the  negroes,  some  directly  inspired 
by  Whitefield^  and  others  stimulated  by  his  appeal,^  the  stupendous 

'  There  was  such  granting  of  supplies  from  1741  to  1745  both  by  the  New  Bruns- 
wick and  the  Old  Side  Presbyterians. 

'  Boston  News-Lctier,  August  21,  1740;  New  England  Weekly  Journal,  May  6,  20, 
June  3,  1740;  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  November  27,  1740;  American  Weekly  Mercury, 
January  8,  1741;  New  York  Weekly  Journal,  February  4,  1741;  South  Carolina 
Gazette,  March  6,  1742. 

3  A  year  after  \Miitefield's  letter  advocating  the  Christian  training  of  slaves  his 
friend  Hugh  Brj^an  published  a  letter  denouncing  the  clergy  of  the  establishment  for 
their  failure  to  show  pity  to  the  perishing.     A  year  later  he  and  his  brother  were 


92      TEE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

task  of  their  evangelization  was  left  to  the  Methodists  and  Baptists  of  a 
later  day.  It  was  necessary  that  the  Great  Awakening  in  successive 
advances  should  win  the  allegiance  of  a  dominant  portion  of  the  white 
population  of  the  states  where  slaves  abounded  before  the  Christianiza- 
tion  of  the  negroes,  the  greatest  missionary  triumph  of  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries,  could  be  effected. 

Missionary  effort  in  behalf  of  the  American  Indians,  also  powerfully 
stimulated  by  the  Great  Awakening,  was  rewarded  by  earlier  fruitage 
than  were  Whitefield's  enterprises  for  the  uplift  of  black  men.  Indeed, 
in  the  period  before  the  revival  the  New  England  governments  had 
co-operated  with  Scotch  and  Scotch-Irish  societies  in  the  maintenance 
of  missions  to  the  Indians  in  their  borders.  The  results  were  not  com- 
mensurate with  the  efforts  put  forth. ^  But  when  the  revival  swept 
over  New  England  the  Indians  were  caught  in  the  same  movement.^ 
These  successes  gave  new  life  to  missionary  endeavor.  The  mission 
at  Stockbridge,  Massachusetts,  conducted  by  Jonathan  Edwards  after 
his  dismissal  from  Northampton,  came  into  direct  contact  with  the 
Indians  of  New  York,  and  its  beneficial  influence  was  felt  far  into  the 
interior  of  that  province.^  Dartmouth  College,  founded  by  Eleazer 
Wheelock,  was  another  gathering-point  of  Indian  youth  from  the  Middle 
Colonies.  Samson  Occum,  Wheelock's  first  Indian  pupil,  and  a  number 
of  other  missionaries  who  looked  to  Wheelock  for  direction  and  support 
operated  in  the  Middle  Colonies.  Whitefield's  influence  in  England 
brought  very  considerable  aid  to  these  Indian  missions  conducted  by 
friends  of  the  revival.^ 


indicted  for  holding  religious  meetings  for  negroes.  In  the  meantime,  but  more  than 
a  year  and  a  half  after  Whitefield's  letter  was  issued,  letters  of  the  bishop  of  London 
were  advertised  exhorting  masters  to  instruct  their  negroes  in  the  Christian  faith. 
Dissenting  pastors,  supporters  of  the  revival,  seem  to  have  been  the  first  to  take  public 
action  in  adopting  the  proposals  of  the  bishop.  Finally  Garden  published  an  Account 
of  the  Negro  School  at  Charleston  for  the  year  1 743 .  South  Carolina  Gazette,  January  8, 
September  5,  1741;  March  27,  April  17,  1742;  April  2,  1744.  Ramsay  refers  to  a 
report  of  the  school  published  in  1752.    Ramsay,  South  Carolina,  II,  467. 

^  New  England  Weekly  Journal,  December  13,  1733;  September  9,  1735;  October 
26,  1736;  Dwight,  Edwards,  p.  449;  Robe,  Christian  Monthly  History,  No.  5,  pp.  3-12. 

2  Boston  Weekly  Post-Boy,  October  5,  1745;   Prince,  Christian  History  for  1744, 
pp.  21,  109,  113,  154. 

3  Dwight,  op.  cit.,  p.  534- 

*  Wheelock,  A  plain  and  faithful  Narrative  and  A  Cmitinuation  of  the  Narrative; 
Brainerd,  The  Life  of  John  Brainerd,  p.  347. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  93 

These  New  Light  enthusiasts  did  not  come  to  an  absolutely  untilled 
field,  for  the  English  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  had  been 
and  was  still  co-operating  with  the  province  of  New  York  in  raissionary 
endeavor  among  the  Indians.  The  society  sometimes  employed  Dutch 
pastors.  The  purposes,  however,  were  less  religious  than  political,  for 
they  were  conceived  as  counter-movements  against  the  French  and 
Jesuits.'  Mention  has  been  made  of  a  genuinely  religious  elTort  among 
the  Indians  of  New  York,  that  of  the  Moravians.  They  were  remark- 
ably successful,  because  the  missionaries  threw  all  their  powers  with 
passionate  self-sacrifice  into  the  lowly  service  of  their  heathen  brothers. 
They  brought  them  a  religion  of  fervor  and  taught  them  the  common 
arts  of  civilized  life.^  The  expulsion  of  the  Moravians,  however,  was 
compensated,  in  part  at  least,  by  the  coming  of  men  of  kindred  spirit. 

Far  more  important  than  these  New  England  missions  in  the  Middle 
Colonies  were  the  missions  conducted  by  the  New  Side  Presbyterians. 
Heroic  as  were  the  efforts  of  the  Moravians  in  the  province  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, these  Presbyterian  missions  had  a  wider  influence  in  stimulating 
missionary  interest  among  the  English-speaking  people.  The  New 
Side  Presbyterians  joined  with  the  Scotch  Society  for  Propagating  Chris- 
tian Knowledge  in  the  establishment  of  Indian  missions  in  the  Middle 
Colonies.  Asariah  Horton  began  his  labor  on  Long  Island  in  August, 
1 74 1.  James  Davenport  had  already  begun  a  remarkable  work  among 
the  Indians  there.  The  missionary  came,  therefore,  at  the  most  oppor- 
tune time.  His  earnestness  overcame  the  native  lethargy  of  his  hearers. 
Though  they  were  not  convulsed  by  bodily  agitations,  like  so  many  oi 
their  white  neighbors  among  whom  Davenport  preached,  they  went 
through  the  usual  deep  distresses,  ending  in  voiceful  exultation,  which 
were  regarded  by  the  New  Side  Presbyterians  as  the  normal  method  of 
conversion.  The  converts  often  spoke  of  seeing  Christ,  but  Horton 
explained  the  expression  as  due  to  their  figurative  speech.  The  Indians 
meant  that  they  saw  Christ  by  the  heart,  for  the  New  Side  Presbyterians 
had  great  horror  of  raptures,  visions,  and  all  pretense  to  immediate  reve- 
lation.^  Horton  continued  his  mission  up  to  the  year  1753.  Webster, 
the  historian,  reported  one  hundred  years  afterward  that  two  of  the 
Indian  churches  still  remained.'' 

Though  Horton  earned  honorable  mention,  the  name  that  is  spelled 
in  capital  letters  is  that  of  Brainerd.    There  is  no  more  saintly  figure 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  1443,  1466.  '  Brainerd,  op.  cil.,  p.  73. 

3  Robe,  op.  cit.,  No.  5,  pp.  14-66;  No.  6,  pp.  1-17. 

<  Webster,  A  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  465. 


94      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

in  American  missionary  annals  than  that  of  David  Brainerd.  A  his- 
torian of  missions  has  said  of  Brainerd's  work  in  New  Jersey  that  "at 
Crossweeksung  his  success  was  perhaps  without  a  parallel  in  heathen 
missions  since  the  days  of  the  apostles."'  His  diary  is  a  classic  and  came 
as  a  personal  call  to  a  number  of  gifted  young  men  who  later  were  recog- 
nized as  among  the  greatest  missionaries  to  non-Christian  lands.^  He 
was  another  appointee  of  the  correspondents  of  the  Scotch  Society. 

David  Brainerd  stood  at  the  head  of  his  class  at  Yale  and  was  in  his 
third  year  there  when  Gilbert  Tennent's  preaching  was  rewarded  by  the 
conversion  of  a  large  number  of  the  students.  The  college  authorities 
showed  little  sympathy  with  the  movement.  The  rector  fined  some  of 
the  students  who  followed  Tennent  to  Milford.  Brainerd  was  heartily 
devoted  to  the  revival  and  in  private  conversation  spoke  harshly  of  one 
of  the  tutors.  For  this  he  was  expelled  from  college.^  After  Brainerd's 
appointment  as  a  missionary  he  was  sent  in  April,  1743,  to  Kaunaumeek, 
New  York,  and  later  to  the  Forks  of  the  Delaware,  where  now  at  Easton 
a  church  bears  his  name.  In  September  he  returned  to  New  Haven, 
hoping  to  take  his  degree.  He  made  the  most  ample  apology.  There 
was  no  question  of  his  attainments  in  scholarship,  but  in  spite  of  the 
entreaties  of  Aaron  Burr  and  Jonathan  Edwards  the  college  authorities 
held  out  stiffly  and  unreasonably  for  an  additional  year's  residence. 
The  rebuff  given  Brainerd,  following  numerous  acts  of  hostility  to  the 
revival,  was  so  resented  by  the  ministers  of  the  New  York  presbytery, 
who  were  nearly  all  graduates  of  Yale,  that  some  of  them  attributed  the 
founding  of  Princeton  College  to  this  incident  as  the  main  cause.''  In 
June,  1744,  Brainerd  was  ordained  by  the  presbytery  of  New  York  in 
violation  of  the  rule  of  the  synod,  from  which  the  presbytery  had  not 
yet  formally  r withdrawn. 5  The  synod  in  a  letter  to  Rector  Clap  con- 
demns the  presbytery  for  "improving  in  the  ministry"  scholars  that 
Clap  had  expelled.^ 

Brainerd's  missionary  journeys  were  in  the  provinces  of  New  Jersey 
and  Pennsylvania  as  far  west  as  the  Susquehanna  River.  From  March 
to  November  of  one  year  he  traveled  three  thousand  miles.  In  June, 
1745,  he  began  his  mission  at  Crossweeksung,  New  Jersey,  bringing 
together  at  that  point  a  number  of  the  scattered  bands  of  Indians.    The 

'  Brainerd,  op.  cit.,  quoting  Ashbel  Green,  p.  80. 
'  Notably  Henry  Martyn,  of  India  and  Persia. 
3  Edwards,  Brainerd,  p.  50. 

*  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  p.  78;  Steams,  Historical  Discourse,  p.  176;  Brainerd,  op.  cit., 
p.  S6. 

5  Edwards,  Brainerd,  p.  142.  *  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  186. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  95 

successive  revivals  here  were  the  marvel  of  that  time  and  have  been 
with  succeeding  generations  of  readers.  His  converts  were  proposed  by 
neighboring  pastors  to  their  congregations  as  examples  of  piety.  The 
meetings  were  frequented  by  the  members  of  white  congregations,  who 
saw  in  the  experiences  of  the  children  of  the  forests  experiences  in  every 
respect  similar  to  their  own  in  the  revival  which  had  previously  been  so 
remarkable  among  the  whites.  There  were  the  same  results  in  the  lives 
of  the  converts,  the  mastery  over  drink,  and  the  new  religious  energy 
transmuted  into  industrial  energy.  Brainerd  gathered  his  Indians 
together  on  Indian  lands  at  Cranbury,  and  the  progress  of  their  village 
astonished  all  visitors.' 

David  Brainerd  made  his  last  visit  to  the  Susquehanna  when  already 
stricken  with  disease;  afterward  by  slow  stages  he  journeyed  back  to 
New  England,  where  he  died  in  the  home  of  Jonathan  Edwards.  John 
Brainerd,  his  brother,  succeeded  him  in  the  mission.  His  were  the  dis- 
couragements attendant  upon  the  training  of  such  a  people.  The 
greatest  difl&culty  was  not  in  the  refractory  nature  of  the  Indians  but 
in  the  rapacity  of  Chief  Justice  Morris  and  his  fellow  conspirators,  who 
ejected  not  only  the  Indians  from  their  new  town  of  Bethel  but  large 
numbers  of  white  farmers  from  their  holdings.^  The  Indian  town  of 
Brotherton  was  then  founded  with  ample  legal  protection.^  A  genera- 
tion after  the  death  of  John  Brainerd  the  remnant  of  the  Indians  migrated 
to  western  New  York,  where  they  amalgamated  with  the  Oneidas.'* 

6.  The  revivalists  as  educators. — The  new  impulse  given  to  education 
by  the  evangelical  revival  was  even  more  significant  than  the  new  enthu- 
siasm for  missionary  endeavor.  The  Great  Awakening  as  a  popular 
movement  and  as  a  return  to  primitive  Christianity  appeared  to  its 
opposers  to  be  imfavorable  to  education.  The  Separates  of  New  Eng- 
land, the  Baptists,  with  whom  to  a  considerable  extent  they  united,  the 
Moravians,  and  after  them  the  Methodists,  all  made  use  of  lay  preachers 
and  advanced  to  the  regular  ministry  men  who  did  not  possess  college 
diplomas.  Yet  the  Separates  founded  the  Shepherd's  Tent  at  New 
London,  and  the  other  bodies  have  an  honorable  history  as  promoters 
of  education.  But  whatever  the  attitude  of  these  bodies,  which  were 
then  looked  upon  as  irregular,  the  leading  Calvinistic  revivalists  were 
everywhere  insistent  upon  ministerial  education  and  favorable  to  popular 
education.     They  held  this  position  and  struggled  to  found  schools  at 

'Edwards,  Brainerd,  pp.  194-307;   Brainerd,  op.  cit.,  pp.  79-81,  113. 

'Ibid,  pp.  153-58,  284-91. 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  292-97.  *  Ibid.,  pp.  417-23. 


96      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

the  very  time  during  which  they  were  ridiculed  in  public  print  as  the 
apostles  of  ignorance.^ 

The  founding  in  1726  of  WilUam  Tennent's  school  has  been  described 
in  an  earUer  chapter.  For  twenty  years  this  school  of  the  prophets  justi- 
fied the  name  of  Log  College.  He  sent  out  as  many  young  men  into  the 
ministry  in  the  last  five  years  of  his  life  as  he  had  in  the  preceding  fifteen. 
This  was  itself  a  fruit  of  the  quickened  religious  interest.  In  1742  he 
was  so  bowed  down  by  the  weight  of  years  that  he  begged  assistance 
from  the  presbytery,  and  suppUes  were  granted  him.  In  1743  Charles 
Beatty,  trained  by  him,  was  ordained  as  his  colleague.^  Beatty  was 
later  widely  known  for  his  journeys  among  the  Indians,  his  service  as 
chaplain  to  provincial  troops,  and  his  voyages  to  foreign  parts  in  the 
interest  of  Princeton  College  and  church  extension.  He  had  not  the 
quiet,  scholarly  tastes  to  continue  the  Log  College.  Therefore  when 
the  patriarch  of  education  died  in  1 746  the  Log  College  ceased  to  exist.^ 

The  great  majority  of  the  young  men  trained  at  the  Log  College 
entered  upon  their  work  after  the  schism  of  1741.  They  were  sharply 
distinguished  from  the  men  trained  in  European  imiversities,  as  most  of 
the  Old  Side  ministers  had  been.  The  distinguishing  marks  are  well 
indicated  by  the  criticisms  of  George  Gillespie  upon  the  latter,4  though 
he  was  himself  educated  in  Scotland,  and  by  the  newspaper  attacks  of 
unnamed  correspondents  upon  the  former.  The  Old  Side  ministers  had 
been  destined  by  their  parents  to  the  ministry  without  being  able  to 
tell  of  a  spiritual  crisis  in  their  lives  and  without  a  burning  zeal  to  make, 
converts  to  Christ.  They  resented  any  prying  into  their  secret  experi- 
ences, though  this  was  required  by  the  order  of  the  synod  and  the 
discipHne  of  the  church.  The  Log  College  men,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
caught  up  by  a  wave  of  revivalism.  They  dared  not  prepare  for  the 
ministry  until  they  had  passed  through  a  period  of  conviction,  had 
attained  assurance,  and  believed  themselves  driven  into  the  ministry 
by  divine  compulsion.  Most  of  these  young  men  followed  other  occu- 
pations, from  which  they  turned  to  ministerial  preparation.  At  the 
completion  of  their  studies  they  went  out  like  the  apostles  to  turn  the 
world  upside  down.  Then  their  enemies  cried  out,  "Could  the  great 
Gilbert  be  persuaded  to  remit  these  strollers  to  their  looms,  their  lasts, 

^  Boston  Evening  Post,  April  2,  October  15,  1744;  Boston  Gazette,  July  24,  1744; 
Pennsylvania  Journal,  June  30,  1743;  South  Carolina  Gazette,  July  4,  1743. 

*  MS  Minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbyten'  for  December  14,  1743. 

3  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  p.  247;   Murphy,  Presbytery  of  the  Log  College,  p.  68. 

•»  Gillespie,  op.  cit.,  pp.  5,  6,  20. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  97 

their  packs,  their  grubbing  hoes,  from  whence  in  his  great  zeal  he  took 
them,  to  support  his  father's  Log  House  College,  we  might  soon  hope 
to  see  a  new  face  of  affairs;  but  this  is  not  to  be  expected."'  All  the 
sixteen  or  eighteen  New  Side  ministers  who  were  trained  at  the  Log 
College  were  men  of  fiery  zeal,  and  fully  half  of  them  were  preachers  of 
extraordinary  power.  Such  were  the  two  B lairs  and  Samuel  Finley,  who 
were  equally  eminent  as  educators;  and  such  were  the  four  Tennent 
brothers,  John  Rowland,  William  Robinson,  Charles  Beatty,  and  John 
Roan. 

Samuel  Blair,  one  of  the  strongest  of  this  group  of  strong  men, 
established  a  classical  and  theological  school  at  Fagg's  Manor  upon  the 
model  of  the  Log  College.  His  first  pupil,  Samuel  Davies,  was  ready 
for  licensure  in  1746.^  The  expenses  of  this  promising  student  were 
borne  by  William  Robinson.  The  reward  of  both  instructor  and  bene- 
factor was  that  as  a  preacher  Davies  was  the  admiration  of  England  and 
America,  and  as  president  of  Princeton  College  he  was  greatly  beloved. 
Yet  Davies  declared  that  in  all  his  travels  he  heard  no  preacher  equal  to 
his  teacher,  Samuel  Blair.^  Other  students  at  Fagg's  Manor  were  Dr. 
John  Rodgers,  of  New  York,  Alexander  Cumming,  of  Boston,  James 
Finley,  brother  of  Samuel,  and  Robert  Smith,  of  Pequea,  all  leaders  of 
note.  After  the  death  of  Samuel  Blair  in  1751  his  school  was  continued 
by  his  brother,  John  Blair,  also  educated  at  the  Log  College,  until  his 
election  in  1767  to  a  professorship  at  Princeton. i 

Another  famous  educator  trained  at  the  Log  College  and  ranking 
with  Samuel  and  John  Blair  was  Samuel  Finley.  There  was  no  more 
aggressive  itinerant  than  he.  After  his  settlement  at  Nottingham, 
Pennsylvania,  he  established  an  academy  there  which  attracted  not  only 

'  Boston  Evening  Post,  April  2,  1744. 

'  Blair  is  said  to  have  opened  his  school  soon  after  his  removal  to  Fagg's  Manor, 
but  Davies  may  have  come  under  his  instruction  at  Shrewsbury,  New  Jersey,  for 
Davies  received  the  rudiments  of  classical  training  under  Rev.  Abel  Morgan,  Baptist 
pastor  at  Middletown,  New  Jersey.  Webster,  op.  cit.,  p.  549;  Murphy,  op.  ciL,  p.  88. 
The  famous  John  Rodgers  entered  Blair's  school  in  1743,  completed  there  his  academ- 
ical studies,  including  the  moral  and  physical  sciences,  as  well  as  the  languages,  and 
made  considerable  progress  in  the  study  of  theology.  "At  Mr.  Blair's  Academy,  Mr. 
Rodgers  was  so  happy  as  to  find  a  number  of  young  gentlemen,  of  excellent  talents, 
and  of  eminent  piety,  preparing  for  the  gospel  ministry,  in  whose  friendship  he 
found  much  comfort,  and  whose  society  contributed  not  a  little  to  his  improve- 
ment."— Miller,  Memoirs  of  Rev.  John  Rodgers,  D.D.,  pp.  17-23. 

3  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  p.  193;   Webster,  op.  cit.,  pp.  430,  550. 

*  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  pp.  197,  198;   Murphy,  op.  cit.,  pp.  87-95. 


98      THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

students  preparing  for  the  ministry  but  others  as  well.  Among  the  dis- 
tinguished men  educated  at  Nottingham  were  Governors  Martin,  of 
North  Carolina,  and  Henry,  of  Maryland,  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  of  Phila- 
delphia, and  Dr.  William  M.  Tennent,  of  Abington,  son  of  Charles  Ten- 
nent  and  grandson  of  the  founder  of  the  Log  College.  Upon  the  death 
in  1 761  of  Samuel  Davies,  president  of  Princeton,  Samuel  Finley  was 
elected  his  successor.  He  held  the  office  till  his  death  in  1766.^  It  was 
during  his  presidency  that  an  amazing  revival  swept  through  the  college, 
when  about  half  the  entire  number  of  students  were  converted,  so  that 
nearly  the  whole  college  was  experimentally  Christian.* 

The  relation  of  the  Log  College  to  Princeton  is  intimate  but  not  so 
direct  as  its  relation  to  private  schools  giving  collegiate  instruction 
at  Fagg's  Manor,  Nottingham,  and  Pequea.^  Jonathan  Dickinson  and 
Aaron  Burr,  the  first  and  second  presidents  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey, 
as  Princeton  was  called  in  the  eighteenth  century,  were  members  of  the 
presbytery  of  New  York  and  were  not  Log  College  men.  Yet  the  new 
school  was  chartered  not  six  months  after  the  death  of  WilHam  Tennent, 
and  its  ideals  were  the  same  as  those  of  the  Log  College.  The  ministers 
of  that  presbytery  had  come  to  distrust  the  colleges  of  New  England, 
much  as  did  Whitefield,  his  friend  Governor  Belcher,  Jonathan  Edwards, 
and  Gilbert  Tennent.  In  the  refounding  of  the  college  in  1748  New 
Brunswick  men  were  prominent,  and  it  was  removed  eight  years  later 
to  Princeton,  within  the  bounds  of  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunwsick, 
and  centrally  located,  like  Neshaminy,  between  New  York  and  Phila- 
delphia. Burr  was  followed  in  the  presidency  by  his  father-in-law, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  whose  death  soon  followed.  His  successors  in  ofiice 
were  Samuel  Davies  and  Samuel  Finley.  All  these  men  were  great 
preachers  and  eminent  promoters  of  the  revival.  Their  deaths  came  in 
rapid  succession.  The  names  of  so  many  presidents  who  had  been 
foremost  in  the  Great  Awakening  have  indissolubly  associated  the  infancy 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  95-101;  Alexander,  op.  cii.,  pp.  204-14;  Webster,  op.  cit.,  p.  490. 

'  Gilbert  Tennent,  Discourses  on  ...  .  Important  Subjects,  Preface,  pp.  iii-x; 
Davies,  Little  Children  invited  to  Jesus  Christ,  pp.  13,  14. 

'  This  was  a  school  of  the  third  generation  from  the  Log  College,  for  it  was  estab- 
lished by  Robert  Smith,  who  studied  under  Samuel  Blair,  who  studied  under  William 
Tennent,  Sr.  At  Pequea,  McMillan,  pioneer  of  western  Pennsylvania  and  founder 
of  Jefferson  College,  was  educated,  as  well  as  other  trainers  of  preachers.  Among 
them  were  the  two  sons  of  Robert  Smith — S.  S.  Smith,  president  of  Hampton-Sidney 
and  later  of  Princeton,  and  J.  B.  Smith,  president  of  Hampton-Sidney  and  later  of 
Union  College.  '  Webster,  op.  cit.,  pp.  612,  614. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  99 

of  Princeton  University  with  warm  evangelical  religion.  It  was  virtu- 
ally an  offspring  of  the  school  on  the  Neshaminy.' 

Though  New  Jersey  rejoiced  in  the  possession  of  a  college,  the  pro- 
vincial government  felt  no  financial  responsibility  for  its  maintenance. 
Therefore  the  New  Side  Presbyterians  resorted  to  various  expedients 
to  secure  funds.  Finally  in  1753  the  synod  appointed  Gilbert  Tennent 
and  Samuel  Davies  to  go  to  Great  Britain  to  solicit  aid.^  The  character- 
istic perseverance  of  the  one  and  the  affable  persuasiveness  of  the  other 
made  their  mission  an  entire  success,  even  though  the  Presbyterians 
of  England  were  rapidly  approaching  Unitarianism  and  were  quite 
out  of  sympathy  with  the  evangelical  spirit  of  the  visiting  Americans.* 
Furthermore,  the  Old  Sides  threw  obstacles  in  their  way,''  yet  President 
Finley  says  that  Tennent's  mission,  in  spite  of  numberless  discourage- 
ments, was  successful  beyond  all  expectation. ^ 

The  debt  of  education  in  the  United  States  to  the  Great  Awakening 
is  merely  suggested,  not  adequately  expressed,  by  the  enumeration  of  the 
colleges  which  were  the  direct  fruits  of  the  revival.  Among  them  must  be 
named  not  only  Princeton  of  the  Presbyterians,  Dartmouth  of  the  Con- 
gregationalists,  Brown  of  the  Baptists,  Rutgers  of  the  Reformed,  but 
also,  as  Governor  Pennypacker  has  shown,  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, which  may  trace  its  pedigree  back  to  George  Whitefield  as  its 
original  founder.  The  undenominational  character  of  the  institution  and 
the  attachment  of  a  charity  school  were  features  impressed  upon 
academy,  college,  and  university  by  the  original  Whitefield  enterprise 
of  1740.^ 

7.  The  extension  of  the  revival  to  Virginia. — It  is  one  of  the  conten- 
tions of  the  present  writer  that  the  Great  Awakening  is  not  to  be  regarded 
only  in  the  terms  of  that  extraordinary  emotionalism  which  accompanied 
impassioned  evangelistic  endeavor  but  which  was  limited  in  every  com- 
munity to  a  year  or  two  at  the  very  longest.  Moral  reform  and  philan- 
thropic endeavor  were  essential  parts  of  it,  and  so  were  the  organic 
activities  which  have  been  outlined  in  this  chapter  and  which  gave  form 
and  direction  to  American  Protestantism.  Yet  it  would  be  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  in  the  period  following  1742  the  religious  quickening 

'  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  pp.  76-85. 

*  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  251;  Livingston,  op.  cit.,  p.  22. 

i  Alexander,  op.  cit.,  pp.  54-57;  Webster,  op.  cit.,  p.  394.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  555. 

5  Finley,  The  Successful  Minister,  p.  20. 

'  Pennypacker,  Origin  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  in  1740,  p.  421. 


lOO     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

nowhere  possessed  that  which  in  the  height  of  the  revival  was  its  char- 
acteristic feature.  In  1740  Virginia  was  not  ready  to  give  emotional 
response  to  the  appeal  of  Whitefield,  but  in  the  years  following  his  first 
visit  forces  were  silently  operating  which  finally  issued  in  passionate 
expression.  The  Log  College  evangehsts  were  the  active  promoters  of 
this  revival.  How  their  itinerations  came  to  be  extended  to  Virginia  must 
first  be  told. 

In  the  Middle  Colonies  themselves  during  this  period  the  revival  was 
generally  described  as  the  "late  work  of  God."  There  was  no  longer  a 
general  excitement  kept  alive  by  numerous  instances  of  conviction,  and 
these  followed  at  intervals  by  the  joyous  proclamation  of  conversion. 
Yet  the  lives  of  great  numbers  were  still  determined  by  the  decisions  they 
had  made  in  the  time  of  intense  religious  interest.  Isolated  communi- 
ties were  reached  long  after  the  general  movement  had  passed.  The 
rapid  influx  of  settlers  and  the  growth  of  the  young  made  possible  here 
and  there  the  exultant  announcement  of  the  return  of  the  revival  spirit. 
But  the  characteristic  work  of  these  years  was  the  organization  of 
churches,  the  building  of  meeting-houses,  and  the  supplying  of  congre- 
gations with  preachers. 

Although  the  revival  sent  a  considerable  number  of  young  men  to 
the  various  schools  to  prepare  for  the  ministry,  the  number  of  congre- 
gations appealing  for  preachers  increased  in  far  greater  proportion. 
Several  worthy  pastors  withdrew  to  the  Middle  Colonies  from  Connecti- 
cut, where  they  had  been  made  uncomfortable  by  the  reign  of  the  reac- 
tionaries. Among  them  were  Timothy  Allen'  and  James  Davenport,^ 
now  reclaimed  from  their  excesses.  The  supply  from  all  sources  was 
inadequate.  There  was  but  one  possible  method  approximately  to 
meet  the  religious  needs  of  the  scattered  settlements.  That  was  through 
an  itinerating  ministry.  The  probationers  and  young  ministers  were 
sent  upon  extensive  tours.  All  the  ministers  of  the  presbytery  of  New 
Brunswick,  always  the  center  of  evangelistic  endeavor,  were  sent  upon 
numerous  missions,  some  of  them  upon  long  journeys  to  the  southern 
provinces. 

The  mission  of  one  of  these  men  led  to  unimagined  results.  William 
Robinson,  who  was  remarkable  for  his  sweet  temper  and  evangelistic 
power,  was  sent  in  1743  to  the  new  settlements  in  Virginia  and  North 
Carolina  on  both  sides  of  the  Blue  Ridge.     In  after-years  aged  men  told 

'  Webster,  op.  cit.,  p.  583. 

=  Ibid.,  p.  531;  MS  Minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbytery  for  October  13, 
1743;  May  21,  October  16,  1746. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  loi 

wonderful  stories  of  what  they  witnessed  in  their  youth  where  he 
preached.  Congregations  were  organized  by  him  in  the  Presbyterian 
population  that  was  filling  up  the  back  country.^  An  earnest  invitation 
was  sent  to  him  to  preach  upon  his  return  northward  at  Hanover  in 
the  Anglican  part  of  Virginia.  Here  he  was  introduced  to  one  of  the 
strangest  phases  of  the  whole  evangelical  movement. 

A  spontaneous  revival  had  developed  in  that  region.  The  awakened 
people  had  no  preacher,  for  they  were  dissatisfied  with  the  lives  and 
doctrines  of  the  clergymen  of  the  established  church.  As  they  were 
unaccustomed  to  extempore  prayer,  none  of  them  dared  attempt  it. 
Whitefield  had  preached  at  Williamsburg  in  1740,  but  none  of  these 
people  had  heard  him.  In  1743  a  book  of  Whitefield's  sermons  was 
brought  to  this  group  of  earnest  seekers  for  deeper  spiritual  life.  Mr. 
Samuel  Morris  began  to  read  it  in  his  house  to  his  friends  who  assembled 
to  hear  it.  "The  concern  of  some  was  so  passionate  and  violent  that 
they  could  not  avoid  crying  out,  weeping  bitterly."  His  dwelling-house 
was  soon  too  small  to  contain  the  people;  thereupon  it  was  determined 
to  build  a  meeting-house  solely  for  the  reading  of  sermons.  Called 
upon  by  the  court  to  assign  reasons  for  absenting  themselves  from 
church,  they  took  the  name  of  Lutherans,  since  they  knew  that  Luther 
was  a  reformer,  and  they  had  little  acquaintance  with  dissenting  bodies. 
Of  Robinson's  preaching  Morris  said,  "We  were  overwhelmed  with  the 
thought  of  the  unexpected  goodness  of  God  in  allowing  us  to  hear  the 
gospel  in  a  manner  that  surpassed  our  hopes."  After  the  visit  of  Robin- 
son invitations  came  to  Morris  to  read  sermons  in  many  places,  and  as  a 
result  other  meeting-houses  were  erected  and  readers  appointed.^ 

The  newly  awakened  in  Hanover  county  put  themselves  under  the 
care  of  the  New  Side  Presbyterians.  John  Blair  paid  them  a  visit,  and 
later  John  Roan.  The  revival  was  greatly  extended  by  the  preaching 
of  these  Log  College  evangelists.  Roan  was  outspoken  against  the 
degeneracy  of  the  clergy  of  the  estabhshed  church.  This  led  to  a  general 
alarm,  and  measures  were  taken  to  suppress  the  movement.  Roan  was 
charged  with  blasphemy,  and  some  of  the  people  who  had  opened  their 
homes  to  him  were  fined.  The  governor  issued  an  order  against  any 
meetings  of  New  Lights  and  Moravians.  The  synod  of  Philadelphia 
at  its  next  meeting  adopted  an  address  to  Governor  Gooch  explaining 
that  these  persons  against  whom  charges  were  made  assumed  the  name 
of  Presbyterians  and  had  been  excluded  from  the  synod  because  of  their 

'  Alexander,  op.  ciL,  pp.  215-20. 

'  Morris'  narrative  in  Alexander,  Log  College,  pp.  221-23. 


I02     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

sending  abroad  ill-qualified  persons  to  trouble  the  churches.^  The 
conjunct-presbyteries  sent  Gilbert  Tennent  and  Samuel  Finley  to  Vir- 
ginia with  an  address.  Before  their  arrival  the  trial  of  Morris,  which  was 
virtually  that  of  Roan,  who  had  left  the  province,  was  held,  at  which  it 
was  proved  that  the  blasphemous  expressions  attributed  to  Roan  were 
not  uttered  by  him.  Upon  the  approach  of  Tennent  and  Finley  the 
complaining  witness  fled,  and  the  governor  gave  the  visiting  ministers 
the  liberty  to  preach.^ 

After  the  removal  of  this  cloud  William  Tennent,  Jr.,  and  Samuel 
Blair  were  sent  to  the  Hanover  Presbyterians,  making  altogether  seven 
Log  College  men  who  itinerated  in  Virginia.  Then  Whitefield  came, 
who  was  readily  received  by  the  members  of  the  Church  of  England. 
Finally  in  1747  Samuel  Davies  was  sent  to  supply  Hanover  for  a  few 
weeks.  The  governor  had  just  issued  a  proclamation  prohibiting  all 
itinerant  preaching.  Davies,  however,  obtained  a  license  to  preach  in 
four  meeting-houses  and  later  was  established  as  the  pastor  of  the 
congregations  meeting  in  them.  His  ministry  was  wonderfully  success- 
ful in  the  conversion  both  of  gentlemen  and,  at  the  other  extreme,  of 
slaves.  He  was  the  very  soul  of  urbanity  and  courtesy,  yet  the  extension 
of  Presbyterianism  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  province  was  effected  in 
the  face  of  official  hostility.^  Davies  assured  Commissary  Dawson  that 
he  had  no  "ambition  to  presbyterianize  the  colony,"  but  he  was  zealous 
to  "propagate  the  catholic  religion  of  Jesus  in  its  life  and  power," 
since  the  religious  condition  of  the  province  was  lamentable.'' 

Although  we  have  given  our  attention  almost  exclusively  to  the 
activities  of  the  Presbyterians  during  this  period  of  organization,  they 
were  by  no  means  the  only  people  who,  having  caught  a  new  vision,  now 
bestirred  themselves  to  give  it  concrete  embodiment.  The  aged  Freling- 
huysen  was  gathering  about  him  young  men  of  power  to  win  the  Dutch 
church  to  revivalistic  ideals.  To  the  aid  of  the  German  Lutherans  came 
that  superb  organizer,  Muhlenberg,  straight  from  Halle,  the  fountain- 
head  of  Pietism  and  the  new  evangelism.  The  Philadelphia  Baptist 
association,  strongly  Calvinistic  and  evangelistic,  sharing  in  general  the 
ideals  of  the  New  Side  Presbyterians,  was  now  advancing  to  dominant 
influence  in  this  otherwise  unorganized  denomination.  But  most  of 
these  religious  bodies  were  more  slow-moving  than  the  militant  Ulster 

'  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  180-82. 
^  Morris  in  Alexander,  pp.  223-26. 
^  Davies'  letter  to  Bellamy  in  Alexander,  pp.  226-32. 
*  Davies'  dedication  of  the  sermon  on  Duties,  p.  10. 


PERIOD  OF  EXPANSION  AND  ORGANIZATION  103 

men,  and  the  story  of  their  activities  more  naturally  belongs  to  a  some- 
what later  period. 

As  the  leaders  of  the  revival  in  the  days  of  excited  and  general 
feeling  had  been  Presbyterians,  with  the  exception  of  the  chief  apostle 
of  the  Great  Awakening,  so  now  their  manifold  activities  were  the  most 
important.  We  have  seen,  accordingly,  that  the  New  Side  Presbyterians 
were  sobered  and  steadied  by  the  strictures  upon  their  friends,  the  most 
radical  of  the  promoters  of  the  revival  in  New  England,  and  by  their 
own  contact  with  a  strange  but  worthy  people  whom  they  could  not 
understand.  Then  their  leaders  sought  to  placate  the  men  of  their  own 
blood  who  had  cast  them  out.  Repeatedly  rebuffed  by  the  passionate 
advocates  of  a  passionless  religion,  the  New  Side  Presbyterians  perfected 
their  organization  and  proved  their  Presbyterianism  by  the  schools  they 
set  up.  They  cultivated  every  generous  sentiment  by  admiringly  fol- 
lowing the  fortunes  of  David  Brainerd.  Above  all  they  retained  their 
devotion  to  evangelistic  ideals  and  renewed  their  old-time  fervor  by  the 
success  of  the  gospel  in  the  province  of  Virginia,  where  the  Log  College 
men  were  the  chief  itinerant  evangelists.  Though  the  account  of  some 
of  these  characteristic  activities  has  been  carried  to  a  point  beyond  the 
limits  of  the  period  to  fittingly  conclude  their  story,  the  account  of  the 
triumph  of  New  Side  Presbyterianism,  as  of  the  triumph  of  the  ideals  of 
the  Great  A-wakening  in  other  denominations,  is  reserved  for  a  later 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
WHITEFIELD  THE  PACIFICATOR 

While  the  Great  Awakening  in  the  Middle  Colonies  had  passed  from 
the  generating  to  the  harnessing  of  the  spiritual  energies  of  the  people, 
Whitefield,  who  had  been  the  chief  instrument  of  their  awakening,  was 
now  exemplifying  in  his  own  person  the  characteristic  developments  of 
the  whole  movement.  These  experiences  help  to  explain  the  man  he 
was  when  again  he  was  touring  the  Middle  Colonies  in  the  years  1745 
and  1746. 

In  1 74 1  Whitefield  was  back  in  Great  Britain  meeting  the  strangest 
alternations  of  fortune.  The  adoption  of  Calvinistic  principles  which  had 
commended  him  to  the  active  religionists  of  the  colonies  was  resented 
by  his  fellow  Methodists  of  the  Church  of  England,  who,  in  common  with 
a  great  body  of  that  communion,  had  practically  repudiated  its  Cal- 
vinistic articles.  Seward,  the  wealthy  friend  of  Whitefield,  had  been 
murdered  by  brutal  opposers  of  the  revival,  and  Whitefield  was  suddenly 
called  upon  to  meet  money  advances  which  Seward  had  made  to  him. 
He  was  burdened  by  the  orphan-house  debts  of  many  thousands  with 
scarcely  a  penny  to  pay.  Bitterly  lamenting  his  break  with  John  Wesley, 
deserted  by  former  converts  who  now  stopped  their  ears  lest  they  should 
be  won  by  the  witchery  of  his  voice  to  the  acceptance  of  a  creed  which 
they  detested,  and  threatened  by  incarceration  in  a  debtor's  cell,  the 
undaunted  young  warrior,  not  for  a  moment  questioning  the  truth  of  his 
doctrines  or  regretting  the  responsibilities  which  he  had  assumed,  laid 
his  plans  both  to  pay  his  debts  and  to  build  a  great  tabernacle  on  Moor- 
fields  in  London.  He  resumed  field  preaching  in  the  interior  with  the 
same  striking  success  in  the  opening  of  both  hearts  and  purses  which  had 
previously  attended  it.  The  Calvinism  which  was  a  real,  though  not 
insuperable,  handicap  to  the  evangelist's  mission  in  England  was  a 
compensating  advantage  when  he  accepted  an  invitation  to  visit  Scot- 
land. He  had  long  been  a  correspondent  with  the  Erskines  and  felt 
his  heart  closely  knit  with  theirs,  yet  he  was  unwilling  to  reject  all 
invitations  in  Scotland  but  those  of  the  Seceders  and  to  subordinate 
his  mission  as  an  awakener  of  spiritual  reUgion  to  the  propagation  of 
fine-spun  theories  upon  church  government.     The  result  was  that  he 

104 


WHITEFIELD  THE  PACIFICATOR  105 

was  rejected  by  the  men  who  could  not  monopolize  his  assistance.  One 
of  them,  Adam  Gib,  carried  his  denunciation  of  the  visitor  to  sudh 
extravagant  lengths  that  in  Gib's  last  days  he  longed  for  the  power  to 
destroy  every  copy  of  his  embittered  philippic.  In  spite  of  t)ie  thrusts 
of  reformers  and  conservatives  alike  Presbyterian  Scotland  received 
the  young  churchman  as  a  messenger  of  the  King  of  Glory.  Whitefield 
was  formally  presented  the  freedom  of  cities.  Men  of  all  classes  owned 
him  their  spiritual  father.  Never  since  the  Reformation  had  there  been 
such  a  religious  awakening.  So  great  were  the  gifts  of  the  people  to  his 
charities  that  a  foolish  cry  of  impoverishing  the  country  was  raised. 
Back  again  in  England,  Whitefield  helped  the  Methodist  influence  to 
rise  still  higher.  To  his  tabernacle,  the  "soul  trap,"  came  not  only  the 
multitude  but  the  nobility  of  the  land.  Statesmen,  men  of  letters,  and 
actors  were  there,  enthralled  by  an  oratory  which  they  confessed  to 
be  without  compare.  Yet  bishops  railed  against  the  evangelist  as  an 
enthusiast  and  a  fanatic.  Church  wardens  refused  to  aid  the  poor  who 
frequented  Methodist  meetings,  and  hired  ruffians  were  set  upon  their 
preachers.  Repeatedly  Whitefield  was  the  object  of  physical  violence, 
and  his  life  was  spared  as  by  a  miracle.  Once  a  gentleman  ruffian, 
impelled  by  an  instinctive  hatred  of  aggressive  religion,  made  a  murder- 
ous assault  upon  the  preacher  when  he  was  in  his  bed.  Such  were  the 
strange  \acissitudes  of  a  frail  young  man  who  crowded  into  every  week 
work  that  would  speedily  crush  the  average  man.  It  is  not  strange 
that  Watts  thought  him  the  wonder  of  the  age.^ 

But  during  these  years,  and  indeed  throughout  the  remainder  of 
his  life,  Whitefield  was  never  soured  by  defeat  or  made  vain  by  victory. 
Although  there  was  not  the  least  abatement  of  his  zeal,  the  early  note  of 
asperity  gave  place  to  ripened  sweetness,  which  won  at  last  the  respect 
and  even  the  affection  of  early  detractors.  It  was  natural  that  this 
Methodist  reformer  at  the  beginning  of  his  career  judged  the  men  who 
gnashed  their  teeth  at  him  to  be  strangers  to  grace,  but  he  slowly  learned 
the  injustice  and  impolicy  of  personal  recrimination  and  became  tolerant 
of  good  men  whose  prejudices  led  them  astray.  It  was  characteristic 
too  of  this  movement  that  at  first  representatives  of  all  religious  schools 
were  brought  into  practical  harmony  by  the  new  insistence  upon  regenera- 
tion and  piety,  but  as  they  put  their  new  earnestness  to  the  exploration 
of  other  regions  of  doctrine  and  practice  it  was  inevitable  that  they 
should  divide,  as  all  the  world  had  done  before.     Thus,  though  the 

'  Gledstone,  George  Whitefield,  pp.  162-224.  The  colonial  newspapers  followed 
his  career  during  all  these  years  but  were  most  interested  in  his  campai<?n  in  Scotland. 


io6    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  TEE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

Methodist  societies  in  the  Church  of  England  were  divided  into  two 
branches,  one  Calvinistic  and  the  other  Arminian,  Whitefield  was  too 
genial  and  generous  to  permit  for  long  a  doctrinal  difference  to  separate 
himself  from  the  Wesleys  in  the  higher  unity  of  Christian  love  and  co- 
operation. When  Whitefield  in  Scotland,  chastened  by  this  separation, 
suffered  abuse  from  the  friends  of  the  Erskines,  he  still  protested  his 
love  for  them  and  was  betrayed  into  no  bitter  words  afterward  to  be 
regretted.  When  again  he  met  Ralph  Erskine  it  was  to  embrace  him  as 
a  brother.  One  of  the  most  engaging  qualities  of  Whitefield  was  his 
willingness  to  be  the  most  severe  judge  of  his  own  conduct,  to  make  the 
most  ample  reparation  for  every  possible  mistake,  to  be  tolerant  of  the 
foibles  of  good  men,  to  condone  the  injustice  of  evil  men,  and,  without 
counting  the  cost  to  himself,  to  take  into  his  sympathy  every  man  who 
laid  claim  to  it.  In  all  these  things  the  essential  characteristics  of  the 
revival  attained  pre-eminent  development  in  Whitefield. 

Such  was  the  man  who  braved  the  sea  in  time  of  war  in  response  to 
repeated  invitations  from  the  colonies.  Whitefield's  desire  to  settle  the 
affairs  of  the  orphan  house  and  audit  its  accounts  constituted  another 
call  to  America.  In  the  autumn  of  1744  he  arrived  at  York,  Maine. 
A  number  of  the  ardent  supporters  of  the  revival  flocked  to  the  port  to 
greet  him,  but  they  found  him  hovering  between  life  and  death.  When 
he  had  partially  recovered,  his  enemies  said  that  his  sickness  was  all  a 
ruse  to  gain  the  sympathy  of  the  people.'  All  New  England  was  now 
sharply  divided  between  the  friends  and  the  foes  of  the  revival.  The 
extreme  conservatives  and  the  men  of  rationahstic  trend  formed  a 
majority  of  the  ruling  aristocracy  in  church  and  state.  On  the  other 
side  the  Boston  ministers,  the  partisans  of  Jonathan  Edwards  in  western 
Massachusetts,  and  a  great  number  of  pastors  all  over  New  England, 
with  a  tremendous  popular  following,  were  still  warmly  devoted  to  the 
revival  and  attached  to  its  chief  apostle,  Whitefield.  The  leaders 
naturally  regretted  certain  popular  tendencies  of  the  movement  that 
threatened  the  overthrow  of  the  ecclesiastical  system  of  New  England, 
though  now  it  may  be  claimed  as  one  of  the  glories  of  the  Great  Awaken- 
ing that  it  set  in  operation  forces  which  ultimately  battered  down  that 
system.  Whitefield's  journey  through  New  England  was  a  tour  of 
pacification.  While  preaching  the  same  doctrines  with  the  same  emo- 
tional power,  he  explicitly  warned  his  hearers  from  all  the  extremes  which 
had  been  revived  by  the  general  awakening  of  religious  interest.^ 

'  Boston  Evening  Post,  November  19,  1744. 

'  Christian  History  for  1744,  pp.  320,  336. 


WHITEFIELD  THE  PACIFICATOR  107 

The  same  ripening  goodness  was  evidenced  in  this  New  England 
mission  which  had  been  noted  in  Great  Britain.  It  must  have  been  a 
relief  to  Whitefield  to  be  free  from  the  danger  of  physical  violence,  as  he 
always  was  in  America,  but  from  the  day  of  his  arrival  at  York  the 
reactionary  Boston  Evening  Post  fulminated  against  him  and,  generally 
withholding  the  names  of  the  contributors,  published  vulgar  attacks 
upon  him.  On  the  other  hand  the  Boston  Gazette,  as  the  organ  of  the 
evangehcals,  defended  the  cause  of  reform  with  dignity  and  sobriety, 
while  Whitefield  himself,  when  he  chose  to  notice  the  action  of  pubhc 
bodies,  answered  with  convincing  sincerity  and  sweetness.  Harvard 
College  had  pronounced  against  him,  stung  by  well-deserved  criticism, 
but  Whitefield  now  and  later  so  persisted  in  studied  acts  of  good  will, 
notably  by  his  benefactions  in  the  time  of  Harvard's  distress,  that  at 
last  that  institution  was  compelled  to  acknowledge  his  candor  and  do 
him  honor.  The  opposers  of  revivalism  sharply  criticized  the  Boston 
pastors  for  their  immoderate  attachment  to  Whitefield  and  for  their 
direction  of  his  movements  throughout  New  England,  but  it  was  admitted 
that  the  evangelist  was  the  idol  of  the  people,  so  much  so  that  the  dis- 
turbance of  industry  threatened  an  increase  of  the  town  rates.'  Indeed 
at  this  time  the  admirers  of  Whitefield  offered  to  build  for  him  at  Boston 
the  largest  auditorium  in  the  country  if  he  would  but  remain.  Though 
his  personal  triumph  was  quite  as  remarkable  now  as  in  1 740,  and  many 
were  converted  in  his  meetings,^  no  general  revival  was  stimulated  by 
his  mission,  as  when  he  first  visited  this  section.  The  ecclesiastical 
organization  of  New  England  and  the  homogeneity  of  the  population  were 
such  that  the  revival  had  already  run  its  course  in  towns  where  pastors 
favored  the  movement.  In  other  towns  the  only  recourse  was  to  the 
incursions  of  irregulars,  such  as  the  Separates,  the  Baptists,  and  later 
the  Methodists.  Whitefield  did  well  to  strengthen  the  hand  of  the 
evangelical  party  within  the  churches  of  the  standing  order. 

In  August,  1746,  he  passed  from  eastern  Connecticut  to  Long  Island, 
thus  avoiding  Yale  College,  the  authorities  of  which  had  issued  a  testi- 
mony against  him.  Having  preached  in  various  friendly  congregations, 
he  reached  New  York,  where  the  multitude  hung  upon  his  words  as  in 
time  past.3  Then,  traveling  through  New  Jersey,  he  was  conducted 
into  Philadelphia  by  fifty  horsemen.''    Though  Gilbert  Tennent  had 

'  Boston  Evening  Post,  December  17,  1744. 
'  New  York  Post-Boy,  February'  18,  1745. 

3  Boston  Gazette,  August  20,  1745;  New  York  Evening  Post,  August  26,  Septem- 
ber 2,  1745. 

^  New  York  Post-Boy,  September  16,  1745. 


loS     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

organized  a  Presbyterian  church  which  held  its  stated  services  in  the 
New  Building,  the  affections  of  the  people  went  out  as  undividedly  to 
the  great  orator  as  formerly,  but  in  vain  did  they  importune  him  to 
make  Philadelphia  his  home  and  so  permanently  occupy  the  building 
which  had  been  erected  especially  for  him.  He  made  a  pilgrimage  to 
Neshaminy  to  visit  the  venerable  William  Tennent,  whose  hour-glass 
had  almost  run  out,  and  then  preached  his  farewell  sermon  in  Phila- 
delphia.' Time  and  excessive  labors  had  not  dulled  his  enthusiasm  or 
deprived  his  words  and  gestures  of  their  subtle  charm,  but  friends  and 
enemies  remarked  that  the  asperity  which  formerly  marred  the  pulpit 
utterances  of  the  young  reformer  now  gave  place  to  a  noble  charity.^ 

That  he  so  happily  blended  universal  kindness  with  zeal  for  righteous- 
ness did  not  result  from  the  stilling  of  the  voices  of  opposition.  In 
anticipation  of  Whitefield's  visit  to  New  York,  Jonathan  Arnold  again 
made  war  upon  him  in  the  newspapers,  reiterating  all  his  old  charges 
and  incorporating  a  letter  of  the  bishop  of  Gloucester.  The  bishop 
had  refused  to  see  the  evangelist  or  to  answer  his  letters.  Nevertheless 
Whitefield  had  just  presented  him  a  volume  of  his  sermons  and  an 
account  of  his  orphan  house,  accompanied  by  a  letter  written  "in  a 
very  obliging  manner,"  but  as  he  continued  his  itinerating  evangelism 
his  ecclesiastical  superior  thought  that  his  letters  deserved  no  return  of 
ci\dlity.3  As  in  the  case  of  Arnold's  earlier  attacks,  Whitefield  paid  not 
the  slightest  attention  to  them  now. 

Not  only  in  New  York  but  in  the  Southern  Colonies  he  was  driven 
into  the  unwilling  appearance  of  undermining  the  power  of  his  own  church 
when  his  single  aim  was  to  bring  men  to  Christ.  His  ministrations 
were  more  extended  in  Maryland,  where  he  was  importuned  to  settle,'' 
and  in  Virginia  than  they  had  been  in  his  earlier  journeys.  The  Great 
Awakening  as  a  wave  of  emotionalism  had  reached  Hanover,  Virginia, 
two  years  before,  and  now  under  the  preaching  of  Whitefield  many 
Church  people  came  under  its  quickening  influence.^  In  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  a  hot  newspaper  dispute  was  on  between  the  opposers 
and  the  promoters  of  revivalism.     Indeed  it  had  been  on  during  all  the 

^  Pennsylvania  Journal,  September  12,  19,  1745. 
^  Ibid.,  February  ii,  1746. 
3  New  York  Post -Boy,  January  21,  1745. 
*  Pennsylvania  Journal,  February  11,  1746. 

5  New  York  Post-Boy,  September  16,  23,  October  14,  November  25,  1745;  Morris 
in  -Alexander,  p.  225. 


WHITEFIELD  THE  PACIFICATOR  109 

years  of  Whitefield's  absence,  but  now  it  was  unusually  demonstrative 
over  the  validity  of  Whitefield's  suspension  from  the  ministry  by  Com- 
missary Garden.  The  brilliant  Josiah  Smith,  of  the  Congregational 
church,  as  defender  of  Whitefield,  was  able  to  show  that  the  EngUsh 
authorities  had  treated  the  action  of  Garden  as  a  nullity,  but  Garden 
with  learned  coarseness  would  make  it  appear  that  either  a  novice  was 
defended  by  a  knave  or  a  knave  by  a  novice.'  Yet  when  Whitefield, 
bringing  with  him  an  atmosphere  of  serenity,  reached  the  little  city  of 
hotbloods,  he  preached  with  such  winning  grace  that  praises  were  ex- 
torted from  some  of  his  worst  enemies.'  Finally  he  reached  his  beloved 
Bethesda,  planning  when  he  had  settled  its  affairs  to  resume  his  itin- 
erations in  the  Southern  and  Middle  Colonies. 

Whitefield  had  previously  given  to  the  public  narratives  of  his  orphan 
house,  Bethesda,  with  statements  of  receipts  and  disbursements.  Now 
his  purpose  was  to  join  with  his  business  agent  in  a  final  statement 
covering  all  the  operations  since  the  founding  of  the  home.  All  the 
accounts  and  vouchers  were  laid  before  the  auditors,  whose  finding  was 
highly  creditable  to  Whitefield's  methodical  benevolence.  Now  we 
find  Franklin  with  evident  satisfaction  publishing  the  explanatory 
letter  of  Whitefield  and  a  summary  financial  statement.^  During  the 
years  of  the  founder's  absence  the  very  existence  of  the  orphan  house 
was  sometimes  questioned,  and  stories  quite  as  incredible  were  told 
about  it.  The  sober  accounts  of  visitors  of  the  highest  repute  were 
brushed  aside  by  enemies  of  the  work  as  fairy  tales.  Whitefield  from 
the  first  had  hoped  to  make  Bethesda  something  more  than  an  orphan- 
age. Later  he  developed  his  plan  to  add  a  college  to  the  orphanage, 
a  plan  heartily  approved  by  the  Georgia  legislature.  The  home  govern- 
ment withheld  the  granting  of  the  charter  and  referred  the  petition  of 
Whitefield  and  the  address  of  the  legislature  to  the  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, who  insisted  on  making  the  proposed  college  a  Church  of  England 
institution.  This  was  a  denial  of  the  liberal  charter  for  which  the  founder 
petitioned.  By  the  acceptance  of  a  narrow-bottomed  charter  he  would 
break  faith  with  his  contributors,  who  were  largely  dissenters.  Accord- 
ingly the  only  alternative  was  the  establishment  of  an  academy  as  an 

'  Not  only  was  disproportionate  space  given  to  this  dispute  for  a  long  time,  but 
frequently  extra  pages  were  added  to  give  it  room. 

^  Pennsylvania  Journal,  February  n,  1746. 

3  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  May  22,  1746;  Franklin,  Autobiography,  p.  131;  Gladstone, 
op.  cil.,  p.  238. 


no     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

adjunct  of  the  orphanage,  with  the  hope  that  a  more  Hberal  future 
would  permit  the  realization  of  his  plan.^ 

In  the  year  1 746  Whitefield  made  his  fifth  tour  through  the  Middle 
Colonies.  It  was  more  extended  and  occupied  a  greater  length  of  time 
than  any  previous  tour  in  these  provinces,  for  he  arrived  in  Philadelphia 
in  May  and  did  not  preach  his  final  sermon  there  till  late  in  September. 
He  made  excursions  into  Delaware  and  Maryland.  He  traveled  in 
Pennsylvania  as  far  west  as  Lancaster  and  as  far  north  as  Easton  at  the 
Forks  of  the  Delaware.  He  went  to  the  extremity  of  New  Jersey  at 
Cape  May  and  along  the  beaten  path  to  New  York  and  Long  Island, 
stopping  for  the  first  time  at  Princeton,  which  name  was  beginning  to 
appear  on  the  records  of  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick.  At  the 
close  of  his  eight  days'  mission  at  New  York  a  eulogy  in  the  style  of 
Pemberton  was  pubHshed.  It  was  said  that  though  Whitefield  had  been 
preaching  incessantly  for  ten  years,  and  was  now  but  thirty-two  years 
old,  he  had  triumphed  over  an  army  of  opposers  and  had  demonstrated 
the  correctness  of  the  opinion  of  Dr.  Watts  that  Providence  had  raised 
up  the  young  evangelist  to  awaken  a  stupid  and  ungodly  world.^  After 
daily  preaching  in  Philadelphia  at  intervals  all  summer  Whitefield 
turned  southward.  Franklin  then  said  of  him,  "He  was  never  so 
generally  well  esteemed  by  persons  of  all  ranks  among  us;  nor  did  he 
ever  leave  us  attended  with  so  many  ardent  wishes  for  his  happy  journey 
and  a  safe  return  to  this  place. "^  His  success  in  1746  was  quite  as 
remarkable  as  the  burst  of  applause  which  first  greeted  him  in  1739, 
for  now  the  Anglicans,  the  Old  Side  Presbyterians,  and  the  Quakers  were 
arrayed  against  the  revival,  and  his  old  friends  the  Moravians  were  not 
on  good  terms  with  the  Lutheran  and  Presbyterian  supporters  of  the 
revival.  Yet  the  evangelist  now  so  happily  united  zeal  with  charity 
and  the  religion  of  power  with  Christian  courtesy  that  even  violent 
opposers  apologized  for  the  injustice  they  had  done  him.-* 

Whitefield  journeyed  through  the  Middle  Colonies  again  in  1754, 
in  1763,  and  finally  in  1770.  Enmity  skulked  in  corners,  while  churches, 
formerly  closed  to  him,  opened  their  pulpits.^    Courts  would  adjourn 

'  Whitefield,  Letter  to  Governor  Wright. 

^  New  York  Post-Boy,  August  4,  1746. 

^Pennsylvania  Gazette,  September  25,  1756. 

■»  Pennsylvania  Journal,  February  11,  July  3,  1746. 

s  Whitefield  preached  to  a  great  concourse  in  Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  in  1763, 
and  also  in  St.  Paul's,  erected  by  the  evangelical  party  in  the  Church  of  England. 
Watson,  Annais,  I,  385, 


WHITEFIELD  THE  PACIFICATOR  in 

and  the  noise  of  traffic  cease  wherever  Whitefield  was  to  preach,  until 
the  very  day  of  his  death.  When  he  was  dead  America  from  end  to 
end  mourned  him  as  the  prophet  of  triumphant  evangeUsm.* 

'  Among  the  many  memorial  sermons  published  after  his  death  two  demand  refer- 
ence. Ebenezer  Pemberton,  who  had  welcomed  Whitefield  to  New  York  in  1739  and 
had  published  such  a  favorable  account  of  the  evangelist  that  he  was  promptly  invited 
to  New  England,  now  a  pastor  i.t  Boston,  published  a  funeral  eulogy  stating  sub- 
stantially what  is  given  above  in  the  text.  James  Sprout,  pastor  of  the  Second 
Presbyterian  Church,  Philadelphia,  in  a  funeral  sermon  affirmed  that  Whitefield 
had  lived  long  enough  to  convince  the  most  malignant  of  his  enemies  of  his  uprightness. 


CHAPTER  IX 
TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  IN  AN  AGE  OF  UNBELIEF 

The  eighteenth  century  was  an  age  of  unbelief,  for  the  passionless 
orthodoxy  of  nominal  and  apologetic  believers  was  nearly  akin  to  the 
negations  of  deists.  The  world-wide  religious  awakening  was  a  counter- 
movement,  sometimes  threatening  to  sweep  away  all  opposition  but 
never  really  changing  the  trend  of  the  age.  The  new  evangel,  however, 
changed  the  lives  of  thousands  and  called  into  being  a  church  within 
the  church,  a  saving  nucleus  in  almost  every  communion,  composed  of 
divinely  illuminated  men.  They  set  themselves  to  square  their  lives 
by  the  new  pattern  and  to  win  their  churches  and  society  to  the  ideals 
of  experimental  religion.  It  is  my  immediate  task  to  show  how  this 
minority,  working  against  the  drift  of  the  age,  became  a  majority  in 
most  communions  and  gave  to  American  Protestantism  its  dominant 
characteristics. 

The  successive  journeys  of  the  great  Whitefield,  outlined  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  won  successive  generations  to  a  boundless  admiration  of 
the  man  and  of  the  cause  of  which  he  was  the  most  conspicuous  exponent. 
Multitudes  were  converted  in  his  later  itinerations,  yet  never  again 
after  1740  did  he  set  whole  colonies  afire  by  his  preaching.  He  con- 
tributed, it  is  true,  to  movements  inaugurated  in  Virginia  by  Presby- 
terians and  in  the  Carolinas  by  Baptists,  which  were  quite  as  intense, 
if  not  as  widely  extended,  as  the  revival  of  1740.  He  also  prepared  the 
way  for  the  Methodist  preachers  whom  Wesley  sent  to  America.  In 
spite  of  the  diverting  of  public  attention  in  the  Northern  Colonies  to 
war  and  political  debate,  there  were  local  revivals  in  New  England  and 
more  of  them  in  the  Middle  Colonies,  while  the  South  became  peculiarly 
the  field  of  successful  evangelism.  All  these  evangelizing  efforts  of  the 
various  denominations  and  all  the  related  activities  were  parts  of  the 
Great  Awakening  in  its  larger  and  truer  meaning.  The  story  of  nearly 
every  denomination  in  the  last  half  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  that  of 
triumphant  evangelism. 

I.  Triumphant  New  Side  Presbyterianism. — When  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Revolutionary  War  and  again  at  the  close  of  the  century  evangel- 
ism was  clearly  in  the  ascendancy,  the  denomination  in  the  Middle 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  113 

Colonies  which  counted  the  greatest  number  of  adherents  and  most 
influenced  for  good  other  denominations  was  the  Presbyterian.  In  that 
denomination  by  far  and  away  the  most  influential  element  was  the  New 
Side  party.  To  the  day  of  his  death  Gilbert  Tennent  was  the  leading 
spirit  of  that  party.  We  have  seen  how  catholic  he  was,  for  he  felt 
quite  at  home  as  a  worshiper  in  a  Baptist  meeting  or  as  toastmaster  at  a 
Lutheran  banquet.  We  have  seen  that  hard  upon  the  supreme  success 
of  his  life  he  was  cast  into  profound  dejection  by  his  share  in  the  Presby- 
terian schism.  It  must  also  be  recalled  that  when  the  New  Side  synod 
was  organized  in  1745  one  of  its  fundamental  agreements  aimed  at  a 
concert  of  measures  with  the  Old  Side  synod  for  the  promotion  pi  com- 
mon religious  interests.  At  this  point  I  resume  the  story  of  the  events 
which  led  to  reunion  and  demonstrated  the  superior  vitality  of  the  new 
evangehsm.' 

In  1748  Gilbert  Tennent  preached  a  sermon  on  brotherly  love  at 
Philadelphia.  In  this  sermon  he  warned  his  hearers  from  confining  their 
love  to  men  whose  opinions  coincided  with  their  own  upon  every  minute 
point  and  from  judging  professors  of  Christianity  who  were  without 
fervor  as  being  actually  graceless.  The  experienced  Christian,  he  main- 
tained, learns  to  be  merciful  from  his  own  blunders  and  falls.  True, 
there  is  a  temptation  to  attribute  to  ill  designs  the  weaknesses  and  defects 
of  those  with  whom  we  differ,  but  the  more  Christian  course  is  to  hope 
all  things  of  offending  brethren.  In  fine,  the  doctrine  of  this  sermon 
is  that  the  liberty  one  takes  for  himself  he  should  accord  his  neighbor.^ 

The  very  next  year,  1749,  Tennent  published  his  famous  Irenicum. 
In  his  Nottingham  sermon  his  one  aim  had  been  the  reformation  of  the 
church  and  the  triumph  of  the  new  evangelism.  He  was  then  unjustly 
severe  upon  the  critics  of  the  revival.     Now  the  reunion  of  the  Old 

'  How  earnest  was  the  effort  of  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick  to  come  to 
amicable  relations  with  the  Old  Side  men  is  shown  by  their  action  in  1746  in  relation  to 
Maidenhead  and  Hopewell.  A  committee  headed  by  Gilbert  Tennent  was  appointed, 
with  four  ministers  of  the  presbytery  of  New  York  as  correspondents,  to  confer  with 
Pastor  Guild  and  the  congregations  of  both  sides  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  a  union. 
The  Presbyterian  population  of  the  two  townships  did  not  admit  of  the  adequate 
maintenance  of  so  many  churches,  and  it  would  have  been  a  distinct  gain  to  the  old 
congregations  to  receive  the  warm,  new  blood  of  the  evangelical  party.  The  state 
feeling  did  not  permit  reunion  at  this  time,  but  it  was  effected  a  few  years  later.  This 
friendly  attitude  of  the  New  Sides  in  1746  was  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  hostility 
toward  them  manifested  by  the  synod  of  Philadelphia  in  its  letter  of  that  year  to  Rector 
Clap,  of  Yale  College.  MS  Minutes  of  the  New  Brunswick  Presbytery  for  May  21, 
1746. 

'  Gilbert  Tennent,  Brollicrly  Love  Recommended. 


114    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

^  Sides  and  the  New  Sides  was  the  single  object  in  his  range  of  vision,  and 
he  minimized  the  differences  between  the  two  parties,  going  to  the  oppo- 
site extreme.  He  would  have  his  readers  beheve  that  the  differences 
between  the  two  sides  were  over  mere  circumstantials  in  discipline  and 
over  divergent  estimates  of  the  number  of  genuine  conversions  in  the 
revival.' 

One  concession  made  by  Tennent  in  the  Irenicum  shows  how  con- 
fused even  the  evangelicals  sometimes  were  concerning  a  practice  which 
'•was  a  necessary  application  of  their  fundamental  principle  of  conversion. 
He  disavows  the  authority  of  the  church  to  judge  the  "inward  experi- 
ences" of  those  who  seek  admission  to  membership  in  the  church  or 
.participation  in  the  Lord's  Supper.^  In  this  he  failed  to  follow  the 
example  of  his  teacher,  Frelinghuysen.  Jonathan  Edwards  attained 
the  advanced  position  at  about  the  same  time  that  Tennent  published 
his  Irenicum,  and  thereby  Edwards  lost  his  church  at  Northampton  in 
the  following  year,  but  his  courage  ultimately  saved  CongregationaHsm 
from  the  blight  of  rationalism.^  Had  Tennent  been  logical,  he  would  in 
addition  have  denied  the  authority  to  judge  the  gracious  experiences 
of  candidates  for  the  ministry,  but  this  would  have  been  the  surrender 
of  one  of  the  main  contentions  of  the  evangeHcals. 

In  the  year  of  the  Irenicum,  1749,  the  synod  of  New  York  made 
proposals  of  union  to  the  synod  of  Philadelphia.  These  were  cordially 
received,  but  in  the  subsequent  exchange  of  plans  the  old  synod  held 
out  stiffly  for  impossible  concessions,  while  the  new  synod  insisted  upon 
the  annulment  of  the  protestation  of  1741,  and  it  urged  some  recognition 
of  the  revival  as  a  glorious  work  of  God.  Thereupon  the  synod  of  Phila- 
delphia declared  that  the  protestation  was  made  upon  justifiable  grounds, 
and  its  members  were  not  in  the  least  convinced  that  the  synod  had  taken 
a  wrong  action  in  relation  to  it.  So  far  from  recognizing  the  revival 
they  suggested  the  propriety  of  the  synod  of  New  York  pointing  out 
what  was  the  work  of  God  and  what  were  the  artifices  of  Satan  in  the 
late  religious  appearances.'' 

The  reply  of  the  synod  of  New  York,  prepared  by  a  committee  of 
which  Gilbert  Tennent  was  chairman,  was  framed  to  smooth  the  ruffled 
spirits  of  the  conservatives  and  continue  the  negotiations  at  a  time  when 
the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  reunion  appeared  to  be  insuperable.     The 

'  Gilbert  Tennent,  Irenicum,  pp.  84,  99. 

'Ibid.,  pp.  26,  27. 

3  Dwight,  Edwards,  p.  298;  Allen,  Jonathan  Edwards,  p.  263. 

*  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  237,  193,  239,  195,  242,  199,  202,  245,  205, 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  US 

old  synod  maintained  that  the  protestation,  being  made  by  individual 
members,  could  not  be  disannulled  by  the  synod  itself.  The  new  synod 
saw  in  this  answer  the  suggestion  of  a  possible  solution  of  the  knotty 
problem.  It  proposed  that  the  protestation  be  disavowed  as  a  sy nodical 
act  and  be  regarded  henceforth  as  only  the  act  of  its  signers  as  individuals. 
In  the  interest  of  peace  this  concession  was  finally  made.  Then  in  the 
assurance  that  union  was  at  hand  the  synod  of  New  York  appointed  its 
meeting  for  the  year  1758  at  Philadelphia.  A  joint  committee  of  both 
bodies  prepared  a  plan  of  union  which  was  adopted  by  the  synods,  thus 
happily  ending  the  schism  which  had  been  made  in  1741  by  the  irregular 
expulsion  of  the  active  promoters  of  the  revival.  Great  was  the  triumph 
of  Gilbert  Tennent  to  be  the  first  moderator  of  the  newly  organized 
synod  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  holding  its  first  meeting  in  his 
church  at  Philadelphia.^ 

The  plan  of  union  was  conceived  in  a  spirit  of  fairness  and  friendliness. 
In  the  debate  between  the  New  Sides  and  the  Old  Sides  the  former  had 
made  a  distinction  between  determinations  of  the  synod  in  doctrine  and 
government  which  might  properly  be  regarded  as  indispensable  and 
those  in  which  forbearance  might  well  be  exercised  toward  tender  con- 
sciences. They  did  not  think  that  agreement  in  every  truth  and  duty 
should  be  made  a  term  of  communion.  This  principle  was  adopted  in 
the  plan.  A  protestation  was  defined  in  the  agreement  between  the 
synods  as  a  solemn  appeal  from  the  bar  of  a  judicatory  to  God  against  a 
public  determination  of  that  judicatory  with  which  the  protestor's 
conscience  was  offended.  The  implication  was  that  the  famous  protes- 
tation of  1 741,  which  was  now  disavowed  as  a  sy  nodical  act,  was  alto- 
gether irregular.  Provision  was  made  against  intrusion,  but  it  was 
considered  unbrotherly  for  a  minister  to  refuse  his  pulpit  to  a  regular 
member  of  the  synod.  The  examination  of  candidates  for  the  ministry, - 
as  to  their  learning  and  experimental  acquaintance  with  rehgion  was  com- 
mitted to  the  presbyteries,  and  nothing  was  said  of  synodical  examination 
and  college  diplomas.  This  was  a  complete  surrender  to  the  original 
contention  of  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick.^ 

In  this  agreement  the  members  of  the  synod  of  New  York  reaffirmed 
their  adherence  to  their  former  sentiments  in  favor  of  the  late  religious 
appearances,  and  the  united  synod  made  an  unequivocal  declaration  in 
favor  of  the  evangelical  principles  which  the  New  Sides  had  held  forth. 
When  men  bewail  their  sins,  choose  Christ  for  their  Savior,  and  make  it 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  250,  251,  116,  267,  221, 275,  279, 224,  230, 284. 
'  Ibid.,  pp.  253,  286,  287. 


ii6     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

the  business  of  their  Hves  to  please  God  and  to  do  good  to  their  fellow 
men,  this  is  to  be  acknowledged  as  a  glorious  work  of  God,  even  though 
it  be  attended  with  unusual  bodily  commotions  through  the  infirmity 
of  some  of  its  subjects.  But  when  persons  judge  themselves  converted 
because  of  visions,  voices,  and  faintings  and  do  not  give  the  evidence 
of  a  changed  life,  such  persons  are  believed  to  be  under  a  dangerous 
delusion.  The  members  of  both  synods  engaged  to  promote  such  a  work 
of  grace  as  their  united  testimony  had  thus  described,  to  pursue  spiritual 
and  awakening  methods,  and  to  cultivate  harmony  among  themselves 
and  piety  among  the  people.  Though  the  Old  Side  ministers  retained 
their  unfavorable  opinion  of  the  Great  Awakening,  they  were  now 
thoroughly  committed  to  its  aims.^ 

The  most  eloquent  testimony  to  the  triumph  of  the  evangelical 
party  is  given  by  the  increase  in  the  number  of  ministers  during  the 
period  of  separation.  In  1741,  at  the  time  of  the  schism,  there  were 
forty-three  ministers  in  the  synod  of  Philadelphia,  including  the  absent 
members.^  Of  this  number  nine  were  excluded,  but  not  more  than  seven 
may  properly  be  regarded  as  constituting  the  New  Brunswick  party.  In 
1745,  when  the  synod  of  New  York  was  organized,  the  Old  Side  synod 
numbered  twenty-five  and  the  New  Side  synod  twenty-two.  Among 
these  twenty-two  New  Side  ministers  the  New  Brunswick  party  had 
increased  from  seven  to  thirteen. ^  In  1758,  when  the  reunion  was 
effected,  the  Old  Side  synod  numbered  twenty-two  and  the  New  Side 
synod  seventy-two,  so  that  in  the  united  synod  the  evangelical  party 
was  more  than  three  times  as  numerous  as  the  conservative."* 

This  gain  is  not  to  be  explained  by  a  comparison  of  the  Presbyterian 
immigration  from  New  England  with  that  from  Ulster,  for  upon  this 
basis  a  greater  proportionate  growth  of  the  conservative  church  might 
be  expected.  The  Great  Awakening  itself  supplies  the  only  sufficient 
answer.  Many  of  the  ministers  of  the  synod  of  Philadelphia  were  old 
men.  The  recruits  from  abroad  were  sometimes  morally  unfit,  and 
sometimes  they  were  discouraged  by  the  hard  conditions  of  colonial  life. 
Much  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  candidates  prepared  in  the  schools 
of  the  conservatives  in  the  colonies.  The  losses  of  the  synod  were  there- 
fore great.  On  the  other  hand  the  young  enthusiasts  of  the  synod  of 
New  York  were  in  many  instances  soon  worn  out  by  their  constant  itiner- 
ations and  the  heedless  expenditure  of  their  powers.   .John  Rowland, 

'  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  287,  288.  \^__ 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  147,  153,  159-  ^  H'id-,  PP-  i75>  232. 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  228,  280,  285. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  117 

William  Robinson,  Samuel  Blair,  and  Samuel  Davies  all  died  young. 
The  New  Side  churches  were  active,  growing,  and  full  of  young  people. 
The  heroism  of  these  leaders  and  others  like  them  attracted  splendid 
young  men  to  take  their  places.  The  synod  therefore  grew  in  spite  of 
its  losses.' 

Though  the  conservatives  and  evangelicals  came  together  upon  an 
evangelical  platform,  the  two  parties  still  existed,  with  their  sharply 
contrasted  programs.  The  conservative  minority,  which  had  proudly 
waved  the  banner  of  synodical  authority  when  it  was  in  control  of  the 
synod,  now  resisted  that  authority,  and  a  permanent  rupture  was 
prevented  by  practically  allowing  the  conservatives  to  put  their  own 
interpretation  upon  the  Directory  and  the  Articles  of  Union.  The 
center  of  disturbance  now,  as  in  1741,  was  in  the  presbytery  of  Donegal, 
where  alone  the  conservatives  were  in  the  majority.^  The  divisions  in 
the  congregations  in  that  region  were  not  healed  in  1758  and  in  some 
instances  continued  to  the  close  of  the  century.  This  long-drawn-out 
bitterness  is  attributed  by  the  historian  of  the  presbytery  of  Donegal 
to  ''honesty  of  convictions  and  characteristic  Scotch-Irish  obstinacy."* 

Though  we  cannot  accept  Gilbert  Tennent's  exaggerated  representa- 
tion of  the  essential  agreement  of  the  two  parties,  for  there  were  funda- 
mental differences  between  them,  his  action  and  that  of  the  majority 
demonstrate  the  fact  that  the  Great  Awakening  was  not  so  much  a  divid- 
ing as  a  unifying  force  in  the  realm  of  religion,  and,  whether  dividing  or 
unifying,  it  was  a  force.  From  the  point  of  view  of  more  developed 
American  Protestantism  the  failure  to  insist  on  regenerate  church  mem- 
bership may  be  criticized,  but  the  evangelicals  must  be  praised  for  not 
founding  a  separate  church  upon  a  too  restricted  test  of  what  constitutes 
regeneration.  The  two  parties  still  existed.  The  one  was  Methodistic 
in  its  emotional  warmth  and  propagating  zeal,  in  its  advocacy  of  moral 
reform,  and  in  its  humanitarian  spirit.  The  other  party  was  described 
by  non-Presbyterians  as  being  quite  the  opposite  in  each  of  these  par- 
ticulars.'' No  doubt  there  were  endless  shadings  between  them;  but  it 
was  the  dominant  evangelical  party  that  gave  the  Presbyterian  Church  its 

'Webster,  A  History  of  Ihc  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  251;  Hodge,  Constitutional 
History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  Part  II,  p.  210. 

^  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  pp.  317,  319,  321,  330,  344,  347-50,  355-60, 
366,  371,  372,  383-85- 

3  West  in  Centennial  Memorial  of  the  Presbytery  of  Carlisle,  I,  93. 
*  Smith,  Life  and  Letters  of  James  Osgood  Andre'iv,  p.  30. 


ii8    TEE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

influence  in  colonial  society.  Though  both  sides,  true  to  their  Presby- 
terian training,  advocated  mihtary  defense,  it  was  the  New  Side  lead- 
ers who  were  the  more  active  in  calling  men  to  arms  in  times  of  crisis, 
thus  overcoming  Quaker  opposition.'  Though  both  sides  inherited  an 
aversion  to  the  Church  of  England,  it  was  the  New  Side  propagandists 
that  came  into  actual  collision  with  it  in  the  several  provinces.^  Further- 
more, in  New  York  they  resented  the  diversion  to  a  Church  institution 
of  funds  raised  for  a  provincial  college.  It  was  their  friend  Whitefield 
whose  application  for  a  college  charter  in  Georgia  was  negatived  by  the 
British  authorities  because  he  refused  to  accept  a  charter  modeled  upon 
King's  College.^  The  synod,  now  controlled  by  the  evangehcals,  united 
with  the  Congregationalists  in  concerted  measures  to  oppose  the  imposi- 
tion of  bishops  upon  the  American  Colonies.''  The  Anglican  church 
was  looked  upon  as  the  handmaid  of  the  Anglican  government.  It  was 
easy  to  transfer  their  resentments  from  the  church  to  the  government. 
Gilbert  Tennent  extolled  limited  monarchy  as  the  ideal  government,  for 
as  a  Presbyterian  he  hated  democracy  and  as  a  son  of  Ireland  he  dreaded 
tyranny.s  The  Presbyterians  loudly  protested  their  loyalty  to  the  king, 
but  they  feared  the  designs  of  the  English  government  to  deprive  them 
of  their  constitutional  liberty.  When  at  last  the  Revolutionary  War 
came,  the  Presbyterian  ministers  of  the  Middle  Colonies  outnumbered 
all  others  combined.^  They  were  still  prevailingly  New  Side.  It  was 
the  Great  Awakening  that  gave  the  church  this  splendid  body  of  leaders. 
The  ministers  had  trained  the  people  of  their  churches  till  they  were  an 
intelligent,  resolute,  aggressive  host  for  the  defense  of  their  ecclesiastical 
and  political  privileges.  At  their  schools  the  youth  of  the  land  had 
imbibed  evangelical  principles  in  religion  and  an  American  program  in 
politics.  It  was  the  Great  Awakening  that  swept  into  their  churches 
and  welded  together  such  seemingly  discordant  elements  as  were  then 
included  in  the  population  of  the  Middle  Colonies. 

'  Franklin,  Autobiography,  p.  136;  Gilbert  Tennent,  The  Late  Association  for 
Defence  Encouraged,  The  Late  Association  Further  Encouraged,  a  third  publication  of 
182  pages  on  same  subject.  Sermon  for  Day  of  Fasting  and  Prayer,  and  Sermon  before 
Capt.  VanderspiegeVs  Company;  Brainerd,  The  Life  of  John  Brainerd,  pp.  311-14; 
West,  op.  cit.,  I,  71-85;  Watson  in  Centennial  Memorial  of  the  Presbytery  of  Carlisle, 
II,  167-69. 

'  Miller,  Rodger s,  p.  105. 

3  Whitefield,  A  Letter  to  his  Excellency  Governor  Wright. 

<  Miller,  op.  cit.,  p.  185. 

5  Gilbert  Tennent,  A  Sermon  on  Occasion  of  Victory,  Funeral  Sermon  for  Captain 
Grant,  and  Danger  of  Persecution. 

'  Briggs,  American  Presbyterianism,  p.  343. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  119 

2.  Triumphant  evangelism  in  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church. — There 
is  a  remarkable  parallelism  between  the  history  of  the  Church  of  Scot- 
land in  America  and  that  of  the  Netherlandish  church  here,  for  both  were 
presbyterian  in  polity  and  Calvinistic  in  creed.  But  every  difference 
between  the  two  parties  in  the  Dutch  church,  the  conservative  and 
formalist  on  the  one  hand  and  the  evangelical  and  progressive  on  the 
other,  was  carried  to  exaggeration.  The  development  was  slower  in 
the  Dutch  church  than  in  the  Presbyterian,  though  Frelinghuysen  had 
early  introduced  the  new  teaching. 

Revivalists  in  the  Dutch  church,  as  in  the  Presbyterian,  sought  out 
promising  candidates  for  the  ministry,  superintended  their  studies,  and 
then  united  in  practical  measures  to  induct  them  into  office  without 
actual  violation  of  the  rules  of  the  church.  The  founder  of  ministerial 
education  among  the  Dutch  was  Domine  Dorsius,  a  friend  of  Freling- 
huysen and  a  neighbor  of  William  Tennent,  of  the  Log  College.'  Dorsius 
prepared  a  number  of  young  men  for  the  Dutch  ministry,  the  first  of 
whom,  John  Henry  Goetschius,^  was  to  become  after  Frelinghuysen 
the  leading  promoter  of  the  Great  Awakening  among  the  Dutch.  At 
the  completion  of  his  studies  a  call  was  presented  to  the  young  candidate 
by  the  churches  of  Queens  county,  Long  Island. ^  They  had  waited 
nine  years  in  vain  for  a  minister  from  Holland.  Now  Dorsius  and 
Frelinghuysen  ordained  Goetschius,  and  in  April,  1741,  he  was  installed 
by  Domine  Freeman.'' 

Was  the  ordination  of  Goetschius  valid  ?  Dorsius  based  his  author- 
ity in  part  upon  the  indefinite  charge  committed  to  him  in  Holland. 
His  main  reliance  was  upon  the  teaching  of  Voetius  "that  in  a  country 
where  there  was  no  synod  or  classis  one  minister  might  make  another.''^ 
It  had  been  the  custom  of  the  trading  companies  to  look  to  the  classis 
of  Amsterdam  for  ministers  who  were  desired  from  time  to  time  for  the 
foreign  plantations.  Out  of  this  custom  had  grown  the  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction  of  this  presbytery  over  all  the  foreign  possessions  of  the 
Netherlands.  Even  after  New  York  was  lost  to  the  Dutch  politically 
this  ecclesiastical  relation  continued.^  One  or  two  German  Reformed 
ministers  of  Pennsylvania  owned  the  jurisdiction  of  this  classis  over 
them. 7    The  classis  did  not  think  it  possible  that  an  adequate  education 

'  Ecclesiastical  Records  of  New  York,  p.  2701. 

'Ibid.,  pp.  2684,  2833,  2837;  Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  131. 

^Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  2743.  ''  Ibid.,  p.  2752.  s  Ibid.,  p.  2782. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  2826;   Gunn,  Memoirs  of  the  Rev.  John  H.  Livingston,  D.D.,  p.  82, 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  2478,  2484. 


I20     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

could  be  obtained  in  the  colonies,  and  therefore,  with  the  greatest 
reluctance,  from  time  to  time  it  appointed  ministers  in  the  colonies  as 
a  committee  of  the  classis.to  examine  and  ordain  candidates.  But 
each  time  the  classis  protested  that  the  permission  was  not  to  be  regarded 
as  a  precedent,  and  that  the  request  ought  not  to  be  made  again. ^  The 
classis  had  not  shown  a  friendly  disposition  to  Frelinghuysen  and  his 
evangehcal  associates.  Therefore  Dorsius  and  Frelinghuysen,  both 
independent  and  aggressively  evangelical,  exercised  a  power  which 
seemed  to  be  granted  by  the  acknowledged  text-books  and  by  the  neces- 
sity of  the  churches,  and  which  was  not  without  support  in  the  canons 
of  Dordecht.  This  bold  action  and  the  fear  of  the  loss  of  its  jurisdiction 
no  doubt  led  the  classis  to  authorize  the  ordination  of  a  number  of  the 
students  of  Dorsius,  Goetschius,  and  other  ministers.  Most  of  these 
young  men  were  ardent  supporters  of  the  revival. 

At  first  Goetschius  was  the  admired  pastor  of  all  the  elements  of  his 
several  congregations,  but  when  his  deep  interest  in  spiritual  religion 
became  apparent  to  all,  and  the  work  of  conversion  began  as  it  had 
under  the  preaching  of  Frelinghuysen  in  the  Valley  of  the  Raritan, 
opposition  closed  in  upon  the  young  man  from  every  side.  Boel,  of 
New  York,  directed  the  course  of  the  disaffected,  as  he  had  done  in  the 
troubles  of  Frehnghuysen.^  Goetschius  was  a  powerful  and  successful 
preacher.  He  won  the  hearty  support  of  the  neighboring  Presbyterian 
pastors.'^  When  Ritzema  came  from  Holland  to  New  York  City,  free 
from  bias,  he  was  enabled  to  write  to  the  classis  in  commendation  of 
Goetschius."!  it  was  impossible  for  the  classis  to  recognize  the  validity 
of  an  ordination  which  was  clearly  an  assumption  of  independence. 
For  the  sake  of  peace  Goetschius  yielded  to  the  authority  of  the  classis, 
which  after  interminable  delays  gave  judgment  that  he  was  to  be  regarded 
only  as  a  candidate,  and  that  after  his  call  by  any  church  outside  of 
Queens  county  the  newly  organized  coetus  was  authorized  to  ordain  him 
as  pastor. 5  He  was  promptly  called  to  Hackensack,  reordained,  and 
again  New  Jersey  became  the  center  of  evangelical  influence  and  minis- 
terial training.^ 

The  coetus,  an  inchoate  classis  or  presbytery,  was  organized  by  a 
number  of  the  Dutch  ministers  in  the  year  1747,  with  the  long-delayed 
approval  of  the  classis  of  Amsterdam.^    The  main  purpose  of  several  of 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  2468,  2673. 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  2777,  2781,  2798,  2885.  5  Ibid.,  pp.  2842,  2939. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  2882.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  3027. 

■>  Ibid.,  p.  2913.  '  Ibid.,  p.  2974. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  121 

the  pastors  was  to  expedite  the  ordination  of  ministers  trained  in  this 
country.  They  hoped  ultimately  to  transform  the  coetus  into  a  classis 
and  to  estabKsh  a  college  in  America.  The  Dutch  in  the  two  provinces 
were  increasing  in  numbers  and  wealth.  The  revival  spreading  among 
them  sent  many  young  men  to  prepare  for  the  ministry  in  the  schools 
established  here  and  there  in  the  studies  of  evangelical  pastors.  But 
the  classis  became  more  and  more  reluctant  to  permit  their  ordination 
unless  they  crossed  the  ocean  to  complete  their  studies  in  Europe.  The 
Dutch  church  order,  the  classis  affirmed,  required  of  candidates  the 
certificate  of  professors  and  two  years'  university  residence.'  When 
finally  the  proposition  of  an  American  classis  and  college  was  presented 
to  the  classis  of  Amsterdam  and  the  synod  of  North  Holland,  the  answer 
was  that  an  American  classis  was  an  impossibility,  for  what  authority 
could  it  possess  in  a  land  where  the  decisions  of  church  courts  were  not 
enforced  by  the  civil  government  ?  The  thought  of  a  Dutch  college  in 
America  was  an  "airy  castle,"  for  where  was  its  treasury,  they  asked,  and 
what  professors  would  teach  in  it  ?^  In  vain  did  Theodore  Frelinghuysen, 
son  of  the  founder  of  the  evangelical  party,  attempt  to  show  that  the 
Presbyterians,  belonging  to  the  Reformed  family  of  churches,  maintained 
their  presbyteries  and  synods  and  had  erected  a  college  with  the  aid  of 
their  British  sympathizers.^ 

While  the  evangelicals  and  moderate  conservatives  associated  them- 
selves together  in  the  coetus,  the  extreme  conservatives,  like  Boel,  of 
New  York,  refused  to  join  it,  even  when  urged  to  do  so  by  the  classis 
itself.  They  preferred  to  be  in  direct  subordination  to  the  classis, 
alleging  that  the  coetus  would  lead  to  independence.  They  asserted  that 
the  church  was  in  danger  of  being  deluged  with  half-educated  ministers." 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  2935,  2956. 

^Meeting  of  coetus  {ibid.,  pp.  3490,  3493);  withdrawal  of  city  churches  {ibid., 
PP-  3495,  3497,  3499);  Ritzema's  reasons  {ibid.,  pp.  3505,  3518,  3532);  Dutch  pro- 
fessorship {ibid.,  pp.  3506,  3515-17,  3542,  3554,  3557,  3574,  3613);  convention  {ibid., 
PP-  3541,  3546,  3551,  3561);  reply  to  petition  of  convention  {ibid.,  pp.  3566,  3636, 
3656). 

ilbid.,  pp.  3610,  3648,  3672,  3674,  3738,  3739,  3750,  3751,  3761.  Four  sons 
of  the  elder  Frelinghuysen  studied  in  this  country  and  then  went  to  Holland  for  the 
required  two  years.  Upon  their  return  Theodore  became  the  eloquent  preacher  at 
Albany,  and  John  succeeded  his  father  in  three  of  the  Raritan  churches,  but  two  sons 
died  on  the  return  voyage.  John  petitioned  the  classis  to  permit  the  ordination  of 
Henricus,  his  youngest  brother,  without  requiring  him  to  encounter  the  dangers  of  a 
voyage,  but  the  appeal  was  denied.  Theodore,  having  gone  to  Holland  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  coetus  and  convention,  also  was  lost  on  the  return  voyage.  Henricus 
was  finally  ordained  by  the  coetus  without  the  consent  of  the  classis. 

*  Ibid.,  pp.  2798,  2999. 


122     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

The  actual  danger  of  the  Dutch  church  was  its  extinction  through  the 
loss  of  its  young  people,  since  many  congregations  were  unable  to  obtain 
ministers  from  Holland.  This  party  was  increased  in  1755  by  the 
opposers  of  the  revival  who  then  withdrew  from  the  coetus  in  consequence 
of  the  efforts  to  establish  an  American  classis  and  college.  They  took 
the  name  of  the  "Conferentie."^  Upon  the  apparent  collapse  of  the 
coetus  several  of  the  conservative  ministers  intruded  upon  the  fields 
of  other  pastors,  responding  to  the  calls  of  the  disaffected.  The  sup- 
pressed antipathy  to  the  principles  of  the  Great  Awakening  suddenly 
burst  into  flame,  and  one  of  the  most  deplorable  chapters  in  the  history 
of  the  Dutch  church  was  opened.^  Thus  the  schism  which  was  effected 
in  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  1741  was  delayed  in  the  Dutch  church 
until  1755.  In  the  one  the  opponents  of  the  Great  Awakening  irregularly 
excluded  the  active  promoters  of  the  revival;  in  the  other  the  conserva- 
tive minority  withdrew  and  organized  a  rival  body,  though  both  the 
coetus  and  the  Conferentie  professed  subordination  to  the  classis  of 
Amsterdam. 

Nowhere  was  the  struggle  between  the  evangelicals  and  conserva- 
tives more  vital  to  the  future  character  of  the  Dutch  church  than  in  the 
collegiate  churches  of  New  York  City.  The  conservatives  emphasized 
ritual  and  formal  profession;  they  clung  to  the  dependence  on  Holland 
and  the  Dutch  language.  The  evangelicals  held  the  conception  of 
religion  which  was  now  dominant  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  they 
proposed  the  establishment  of  English  preaching  in  the  Dutch  churches. 
The  consistory  gave  a  call  to  an  English  minister  in  Holland,  Archibald 
Laidlie.  His  preaching  in  New  York  was  so  popular  and  attended  by 
so  many  conversions  that  the  opposers  of  revivalism  raised  a  hue  and 
cry  against  him.  One  of  his  co-pastors  led  the  opposition.  The  con- 
sistory was  sued  at  law,  but  the  decision  of  the  court  was  against  the 
complainants.  An  overwhelming  majority  of  the  members  sustained 
the  consistory.  So  great  was  the  rage  of  many  of  the  disaffected  that 
they  went  over  to  the  Church  of  England.^ 

The  lapse  into  formality  and  the  loss  of  the  yoimg  were  arrested  to 
such  a  degree  that  another  English  preacher  was  demanded.  Dr. 
JohnH.  Livingston,  a  native  of  the  province  then  pursuing  postgraduate 
studies  at  the  University  of  Utrecht,  was  called.  He  had  come  under 
the  spell  of  the  Great  Awakening  in  his  youth.     Fervor,  wisdom,  and 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  3582,  3589,  3597. 
=>  Ibid.,  pp.  3540,  3548,  3608,  3624,  3644. 
3  Gunn,  op.  cit.,  pp.  99-109,  131-55. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  123 

courtesy  made  him  the  pacificator  of  the  troubled  churches  of  his  faith. 
The  schism  in  the  Dutch  church  lasted  from  1755  to  1772.  Livingston 
brought  a  plan  of  union  which  the  classis  of  Amsterdam  had  approved. 
Every  claim  for  which  the  coetus  had  so  long  struggled  was  at  last 
conceded.  Under  this  plan  a  synod  and  five  classes  were  organized  to 
meet  the  requirements  of  the  now  expanded  Dutch  church.'  Livingston 
was  afterward  the  president  of  the  college  for  which  Theodore  Freling- 
huysen  had  died,  of  which  Hardenbergh,  the  student  of  John 
Frelinghuysen,  was  the  founder.^  Livingston  was  the  exponent  of  the 
doctrines  of  the  Frelinghuysens,  the  Tennents,  and  Whitefield,  and  he 
lived  to  see  these  doctrines  cherished  throughout  the  communion. 

Thus  the  Great  Awakening  saved  the  Dutch  church  from  becoming 
a  rituahstic  passageway  to  the  Church  of  England.  The  revival  as  a 
continuing  force  brought  the  Dutch  church  into  its  more  natural  position 
of  fraternal  correspondence  with  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Thus  it 
became  charged  with  the  same  religious  spirit,  adopted  the  same  political 
tenets,  and  was  able  to  take  a  pronounced  stand  in  favor  of  the  American 
cause  in  the  Revolutionary  War.  The  wealth,  influence,  and  strategic 
position  of  the  Dutch  gave  significance  to  this  stand  of  their  church. 

3.  Pietism  versus  conservatism  in  the  German  Reformed  Church. — 
The  history  of  the  German  Reformed  Church  in  the  Middle  Colonies  is 
that  of  the  familiar  contest  between  two  parties,  one  pietistic  and  one 
conservative,  and  the  contest  leading  to  schism. 

In  the  year  1744  Domine  Dorsius,  of  Neshaminy,  in  behalf  of  the 
synods  of  Holland,  entered  into  negotiations  with  the  Presbyterian 
synod  of  Philadelphia  with  a  view  to  a  union  of  Presbyterians,  German 
Reformed,  and  Dutch  Reformed.  The  synod  was  now  controlled  by  the 
Old  Sides,  who  were  naturally  adverse  to  organic  union,  but  they  did 
express  their  willingness  to  join  in  measures  of  mutual  assistance.^  As 
late  as  1750  the  synod  of  North  Holland  was  still  favorable  to  the  union 
of  the  three  Reformed  bodies  in  America,  but  in  1751  it  came  to  a  differ- 
ent determination.  A  report  from  the  colonies  had  come  to  the  synod 
that  "the  Scotch  presbytery,"  meaning  the  synod  of  Philadelphia,  was 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  197-205,  221-40. 

'  All  five  sons  of  T.  J.  Frelinghuysen  died  within  ten  years  of  the  death  of  their 
father.  Only  one,  John,  left  a  son.  From  him  is  descended  the  honored  New  Jersey 
family.  John  established  a  theological  school  at  Somerville,  New  Jersey.  One  of 
his  students,  J.  R.  Hardenbergh,  was  his  successor  in  the  pastorate  and  was  the  first 
president  of  Queens  College,  incorporated  in  1770,  and  later  known  as  Rutgers. 
Messier,  Memorial  Sermons,  pp.  i8i-gi. 

^Records  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  174;   Briggs,  op.  ciL,  p.  284. 


124    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

"not  only  entirely  independent,  but  without  forms  of  doctrine  and  litur- 
gies." When  it  is  remembered  that  the  Old  Sides  were  sticklers  for 
orthodoxy  and  precedent,  it  is  ridiculous  enough  to  read  of  their  synod 
"that  neither  now,  nor  ever,  can  one  be  sure  of  its  opinions."'  Dorsius 
was  an  evangelical,  but  now  German  conservatives  had  the  ear  of  the 
Dutch  authorities.^ 

These  words  of  censure  may  have  had  an  innocent  origin  in  the 
purpose  of  an  active  missionary  not  to  permit  the  Holland  authorities 
to  resign  their  responsibilities  to  a  sister  Reformed  body  in  the  colonies 
which  was  still  in  its  infancy  and  torn  by  strife.  Whether  the  author 
of  the  criticism  or  not,  such  a  missionary  was  Michael  Schlatter,  who, 
as  representative  of  the  synods  of  Holland,  organized  a  German  coetus 
in  1747.  He  had  but  four  associates  in  the  service  of  a  German  Reformed 
population  of  thirty  thousand.  His  energy  in  organizing  congregations 
was  remarkable.  In  Europe  he  collected  a  large  contribution  for  the 
support  of  the  work  in  Pennsylvania,  and  upon  his  return  to  America 
brought  a  number  of  young  ministers,  Otterbein,  who  was  to  become 
the  leader  of  the  evangelicals,  among  them.  Church  people  in  England 
became  interested  in  his  appeal  and  raised  an  immense  sum  for  the 
establishment  of  charity  schools  among  the  Germans.  Schlatter  was 
made  the  superintendent  of  these  schools.  The  published  statements 
of  the  English  advocates  of  the  scheme  greatly  ofifended  the  Germans  of 
Pennsylvania  when  they  were  reported  in  the  province.  The  project 
was  believed  to  have  a  political  bearing  and  to  pave  the  way,  in  the  pur- 
pose of  its  managers,  for  the  establishment  of  the  Church  of  England. 
The  Germans  spurned  the  foreign  charity,  following  the  lead  of  the 
Dunker  Saur  rather  than  the  hesitating  encouragement  given  the  schools 
by  Reformed  and  Lutheran  pastors.^ 

Thus  the  spirit  of  conservatism  among  the  Germans  isolated  this 
people  from  both  the  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  and  the  Enghsh  church- 
men and  aroused  that  hostility  to  the  English  language  and  to  education 
which  was  long  a  barrier  to  the  progress  of  culture  in  Pennsylvania. 
Nevertheless  the  revival  of  religion  was  a  powerful  ferment  among  the 
people,  for  Pietism  was  itself  a  German  product.  The  Germans  in 
spite  of  themselves  were  also  acted  upon  by  EngUsh-speaking  promoters 
of  the  revival.     In  the  coetus  of  the  Reformed  Church  Otterbein  was 

'  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  2874,  3165. 

*  Dorsius  broke  down  through  drink  and  left  the  colonies  about  1748.  Corwin, 
Manual,  p.  244;  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  p.  3138. 

3  Ibid.,  pp.  2960,  2984;   Dubbs,  The  Reformed  Church,  German,  p.  287. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  125 

the  leader  of  the  Pietists  against  the  more  numerous  conservatives. 
In  the  rehgious  destitution  of  the  German  people  the  partisans  of  Otter- 
bein  advocated  sending  out  evangelists  to  win  the  people  to  Christ. 
They  were  willing  to  waive  the  usual  educational  requirements  if  candi- 
dates showed  piety  and  ability.  The  conservatives  placed  all  dependence 
on  the  church  school  and  the  stated  religious  services.  Upon  the  sug- 
gestion of  Superintendent  Asbury,  of  the  Methodist  conference,  and 
under  the  leadership  of  Otterbein  the  class  system  was  introduced  into 
a  large  number  of  German  Reformed  churches.  These  classes  were  like 
the  Methodist  societies  in  the  Church  of  England  and  the  collegia 
pietatis  in  the  churches  of  the  fatherland.  The  conservatives  opposed 
this  movement  strenuously  and  finally  excluded  one  of  the  class  leaders. 
A  new  denomination,  known  as  the  United  Brethren,  was  then  organized. 
Otterbein  remained  in  the  Reformed  Church,  but  like  Wesley  he  gave 
ordination  to  the  preachers  of  the  new  church.  The  coetus  became 
extremely  conservative,  while  the  United  Brethren  did  a  work  among 
the  Germans  like  that  of  the  Methodists  among  the  English.'  As  in 
other  instances  where  the  Great  Awakenmg  led  to  schism,  the  evangelistic 
church  in  time  became  the  more  numerous. 

4.  Triumphant  Pietism  in  the  Lutheran  Church. — The  foregoing 
brief  account  of  the  German  Reformed  suggests  a  similar  treatment  of 
the  Lutherans,  for  in  Germany  these  denominations  were  sister  state 
churches,  and  in  America  their  early  history  was  strangely  interwoven. 

Muhlenberg  is  known  as  the  father  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in 
America  because  he  was  the  organizer  of  the  denomination,  not  the  first 
Lutheran  minister.  He  came  to  Pennsylvania  in  1742  as  a  missionary 
from  the  Orphan  House  at  Halle.  He  found  the  group  of  congrega- 
tions which  he  was  to  serve  and  the  Lutheran  population  of  the  province 
in  general  to  be  "needy  emigrants  and  a  people  scarcely  recovered  from 
long  servitude."^  They  had  not  the  means  to  build  churches  and  schools 
and  to  support  ministers.  This  was  their  own  thought,  at  least,  ar^d 
accordingly  they  left  the  support  of  their  missionaries  to  the  fathers  at 
Halle.  Muhlenberg  was  a  Pietist  in  the  true  sense  and  earnestly  sought 
for  the  conversion  of  his  hearers.  He  often  found  that  the  Lutherans 
who  had  come  under  Moravian  influence  gave  greater  evidence  of  piety 
than  those  who  had  indignantly  resisted  the  Moravians;  but  he  abhorred 
the  custom  of  some  members  of  the  brotherhood  who  intruded  upon 
Lutheran  churches  under  the  guise  of  Lutheran  ordination.     On  the 

'  Ibid.,  p.  312. 

*  Jacobs,  The  Lutherans,  pp.  218,  254.  , 


126     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

other  hand  he  was  himself  despised  by  the  conservatives  of  his  own 
communion  as  a  Pietist  and  a  heretic  from  the  scorpion  nest  at  Halle. 
Like  Spener  and  Francke,  he  was  loyal  to  the  standards  of  his  church, 
but  he  sought  to  lead  the  people  to  a  deeper  spirituaUty  and  more 
Christian  conduct.  He  did  not  exclude  the  unconverted  from  the  Lord's 
table  or  from  the  eldership  in  the  churches,  but  he  strove  earnestly  for 
their  conversion.  The  destitute  Lutherans  of  Pennsylvania  began  to 
lift  up  their  heads. 

As  churches  were  built  for  the  congregations  which  originally  called 
Muhlenberg  and  schools  were  opened  where  grown  youths  learned  their 
letters,  the  young  missionary  began  to  extend  his  itinerations  to  the 
pastor  less  congregations  of  his  communion.  Soon  there  arrived  from 
Halle  additional  pastors  and  catechists.  In  1748  the  synod,  or  minis- 
terium,  of  Pennsylvania  was  organized  by  four  missionaries  from  Halle, 
one  other  German,  and  one  Swedish  minister,  and  a  large  number  of 
lay  delegates  from  different  parts  of  the  province.'  In  1760  the  synod 
was  reorganized  upon  a  broader  basis  than  that  of  the  Halle  missionaries 
and  their  closest  friends.  The  master  spirit  was  still  Muhlenberg, 
whose  itinerations  extended  from  New  York  to  Georgia.^ 

While  the  founder  of  the  Lutheran  Church  in  America  sharply  criti- 
cized the  blurring  of  denominational  lines  as  illustrated  in  the  mission 
of  Zinzendorf  in  Pennsylvania,  he  had  drunk  too  deeply  of  Pietism  at 
Halle  not  to  show  much  of  the  same  catholic  spirit.  He  and  the  minis- 
ters trained  at  Halle  felt  kindly  toward  Whitefield,  for  had  not  the 
evangelist  upon  his  first  return  to  England  taken  collections  for  the 
Lutheran  Salzburgers?  As  late  as  1770  the  great  orator  preached  in 
Muhlenberg's  church  to  a  crowded  auditory  and  then  took  occasion  to 
honor  Francke,  who  had  so  greatly  influenced  his  own  career.  The 
relations  of  the  Lutherans  and  the  Episcopalians  were  peculiarly  inti- 
mate. It  was  reported  to  the  bishop  of  London  that  there  were  sixty- 
five  thousand  Church  people  in  Pennsylvania,  including  forty  thousand 
Lutherans  "who  reckon[ed]  their  service  the  same  as  that  of  the  Church." 
Some  of  the  Lutheran  ministers,  like  General  Muhlenberg,  son  of  the 
founder,  accepted  episcopal  ordination,  intending  thereby  not  to  leave 
the  Lutheran  ministry  but  to  obtain  greater  legal  privileges  in  some  of 
the  colonies.3 

This  emphasis  upon  a  common  Christianity,  so  generally  character- 
istic of  the  evangelicals  of  that  period,  was  illustrated  by  the  intercourse 

'  Jacobs,  The  Lutherans,  p.  243. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  258.  3  Ibid.,  p,  283. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  127 

of  the  Halle  missionaries  with  other  denominations.  With  Michael 
Schlatter,  superintendent  of  the  German  Reformed  churches,  Muhlen- 
berg entered  into  hearty  co-operation  for  the  religious  development  of 
the  German  settlers.  Sometimes  they  held  union  services,  as  Freling- 
huysen  and  Tennent  had  done  at  New  Brunswick.  Muhlenberg  was 
particularly  friendly  with  the  Tennents  and  other  New  Side  Presby- 
terians.* 

Thus  the  men  who  gave  character  to  the  American  Lutherans  of  the 
eighteenth  century  demonstrated  the  possibility  of  uniting  the  culti- 
vation of  a  rich  liturgy  with  the  prosecution  of  a  warm-hearted  evangel- 
ism. While  enduring  hardship  in  the  service  of  their  own  denomination 
they  were  first  of  all  Christians. 

5.  Methodism  versus  formalism  in  the  Church  of  England.' — The  Great 
Awakening,  as  promoted  by  Whitefield  and  later  by  the  Wesleyan  mis- 
sionaries from  England,  did  not  have  the  quickening  effect  upon  the 
Church  of  England  in  the  colonies  that  Pietism,  as  promoted  by  Muhlen- 
berg and  other  missionaries  from  Halle,  had  upon  the  sister  ritualistic 
church.  Whitefield,  like  Spener  and  Francke  in  Germany,  had  not  the 
slightest  desire  to  lead  a  separation  from  the  church.^  He  lived  and 
died  a  priest  of  the  Church  of  England.^  Whitefield  accepted  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles  in  their  literal  and  original  meaning,  in  this  differing  from 
the  greater  part  of  the  clergy  of  his  day.  He  was  warmly  attached  to 
the  ritual,  without  ridiculously  imposing  it  upon  non-ritualistic  congre- 
gations whenever  invited  to  preach  in  their  meeting-houses.  In  the 
cities  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  and  in  the  southern  provinces  he 
contributed  to  the  growth  of  the  Presbyterian  and  Baptist  denominations, 
for  great  numbers  of  Church  people  were  won  to  the  acceptance  of 
evangelical  doctrine  and  a  stricter  moral  code  because  the  evangelist  was 
one  of  their  own  clergy.  Then,  finding  that  these  doctrines  were  opposed 
by  their  own  rectors,  it  was  easy  for  numbers  to  follow  the  advice  of 
their  spiritual  awakener  to  seek  stimulating  ministrations  wherever  they 
could  be  found. 

The  churchman  thus  undermined  the  power  of  the  Church  by  putting 
religion  before  mere  organization,  or,  better,  not  Whitefield  but  the 
clergy  did  this  by  failing  to  improve  the  supreme  opportunity  of  their 
time  to  fulfil  their  proper  function  and,  incidentally,  to  attach  the  people 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  288,  289. 

'  Gledstone,  George  Whitefield,  p.  219. 

3  South  Carolina  Gazette,  February  13,  1742;  January  6,  May  5,  1746;  Whitefield, 
Letter  to  his  Excellency  Governor  Wright;  Ravenel,  Eliza  Pinckney,  pp.  21-24. 


128    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

to  their  church.  Whitefield  does  not  give  a  favorable  view  of  the  rectors 
of  his  time,  yet  the  correspondents  of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Gospel  report  that  as  the  century  advanced  there  was  an  improve- 
ment in  the  character  of  appointments.^  Dissenting  ministers,  educated 
in  the  colonies,  who  conformed,  appear  to  have  made  the  more  efl&cient 
missionaries  among  the  English-speaking  people.  French  and  German 
Reformed  and  Lutheran  ministers,  now  finding  themselves  subject  to 
the  English  government  and  oppressed  by  poverty,  felt  the  attraction 
of  the  English  national  church.^  In  Virginia  the  contemporaneous  cor- 
ruption of  the  English  church  and  state  was  reflected  in  the  life  of  the 
clergy.  ^'Davies  exhorted  the  clergymen  of  the  establishment  to  preach 
the  doctrines  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  and,  stimulated  by  the  success 
of  the  Presbyterians,  to  lend  a  hand  in  the  reclamation  of  the  province. ^ 
Later  in  the  century  a  Virginia  rector  wrote  to  John  Wesley  that  of 
ninety-four  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  in  the  province  ninety- 
three  appeared  to  be  without  "the  power  and  spirit  of  vital  religion."'' 
These  Anglican  clergymen  in  America  looked  to  the  English  government 
for  the  advancement  of  their  interests.  Their  hostility  to  the  Great 
Awakening  and  their  outspoken  Tory  sympathies  led  to  the  collapse  of 
their  influence  in  the  period  of  the  Revolutionary  War.s 

At  every  period,  however,  there  were  clergymen  here  and  there  who 
braved  the  scorn  of  their  associates  and  defended  the  principles  and 
practices  of  the  Great  Awakening.  When  Edwards'  exaltation  of  the 
affections  to  the  seat  of  honor  in  the  religious  life  of  thinking  men  had 
become  the  common  possession  of  Protestant  America,  there  were  not 
wanting  Episcopal  clergymen  who  warmly  accepted  this  philosophy. 
They  preached  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  Whitefield  and  Wesley. 
The  low-church  party  shared  with  other  parties  in  making  the  communion 
which  first  erected  a  Protestant  altar  in  the  colonies  a  power  again  in 
the  spiritual  training  of  the  people.^ 

Whitefield  had  never  attempted  in  the  colonies  to  establish  a  society 
within  the  church,  much  less  a  separate  church,  to  perpetuate  his  influ- 
ence.    It  was  the  genius  of  Wesley,,  however,  to  multiply  himself  by  the 

^  Eccl.  Rec.  of  New  York,  pp.  1551,  1609,  1883,  1892,  1899,  1906,  1909,  1917, 
1951,  1991,  2014,  2096. 

'Ibid.,  pp.  1559,  1816,  1861. 

3  Davies,  sermon  on  Duties,  pp.  3,  4,  8-1 1. 

4  Year  of  1773.    Tyerman,  Wesley,  III,  151. 

s  McConnell,  History  of  the  American  Episcopal  Church,  pp.  180-89,  205-11.  It 
is  convenient  to  cite  this  popular  autlaor,  but  the  text  is  based  on  wider  reading. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  145. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  129 

organization  everywhere  of  Methodist  societies.  As  early  as  1765 
Methodist  famihes  emigrated  to  New  York,  and  after  a  time  PhiHp 
Embury  began  to  preach.  He  was  assisted  by  Captain  Webb,  who 
founded  a  society  at  Philadelphia.  In  response  to  an  appeal  to  Wesley 
for  help  the  conference  in  1769  sent  Boardman  and  Pilmoor  to  America. 
They  preached  to  throngs.  In  two  years  the  membership  reached  three 
hundred  and  sixteen.^  In  1770  Wesley  wrote  to  Whitefield,  then  making 
his  last  journey  through  the  colonies,  to  beg  him  to  encourage  the 
Methodist  preachers.*  Afterward  Jonathan  Bryan,  Whitefield's  friend, 
wrote  to  Wesley  that  the  evangelist's  preaching  was  of  unspeakable  use 
to  many,  but  as  Whitefield's  ministry  was  mostly  in  the  populous  flistricts 
the  inhabitants  of  many  parts  were  still  in  deplorable  ignorance.  Bryan 
pleaded  for  teachers  for  these  people.  His  words  referred  especially  to 
the  Southern  Provinces,  and  it  was  in  them  that  the  Methodist  lay 
preachers  under  the  leadership  of  the  heroic  Asbury  had  the  most  aston- 
ishing success. 5 

The  Methodist  society  thus  established  in  the  colonies  was  within  the 
Church  of  England,  though  condemned  by  the  remnant  of  its  clergy. 
It  was  a  living,  expanding  society  in  a  dying,  unyielding  church.  The 
inevitable  result  followed,  as  in  the  Presbyterian,  Dutch  Reformed,  and 
German  Reformed  denominations.  In  the  period  following  the  Revolu- 
tionary War  thousands  of  members  had  been  deprived  of  baptism  and 
the  Lord's  Supper  for  years.  Wesley  saw  but  one  way  to  prevent  schism 
in  his  American  conference.  The  bishop  of  London  had  blindly  refused 
to  ordain  a  Methodist  preacher  destined  for  the  American  states.''  Then 
John  Wesley  exercised  the  right  of  an  elder,  as  he  had  long  conceived  it, 
to  join  with  other  elders  of  the  Christian  church  in  ordaining  men  as 
ministers  of  the  gospel  for  the  Methodist  societies  in  America.  These 
ministers,  upon  their  arrival  in  America,  were  to  ordain  Asbury  and  other 
lay  preachers,  making  them  elders  like  themselves.  The  superin- 
tendents, Coke  and  Asbury,  were  given  the  title  of  bishop  by  the  head- 
strong Americans,  but  it  was  an  episcopacy  based  upon  presbyterian 
ordination. 5    The  success  of  Methodism  was  not  altogether  due  to  the 

'  Tyerman,  op.  cit..  Ill,  47.  Pilmoor  eventually  became  rector  of  St.  Paul's. 
Watson,  Aytnals  of  Philadelphia,  I,  455. 

'  Tyerman,  op.  cit.,  Ill,  60.  ^  Ibid.,  Ill,  116. 

*  "It  is  doubtful  if  any  single  action  of  a  bishop  has  ever  been  more  fruitful  for 
evil  than  his  refusal." — McConnell,  op.  cit.,  p.  170. 

s  John  Wesley,  assisted  by  other  ordained  ministers  of  the  Church  of  England, 
ordained  Whatcoat  and  Vasey  as  presbyters,  and  he  ordained  Dr.  Coke,  who  was 
already  a  presbyter  of  the  Church  of  England,  as  superintendent.  Tyerman,  op.  cit., 
Ill,  426-38. 


I30    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

felicitous  union  of  appropriate  organization  with  fervent  evangelism. 
Revivalism  had  already  won  the  favor  of  the  American  people  through 
the  preaching  of  Edwards,  Whitefield,  Tennent,  Davenport,  Davies, 
and  the  Baptist  evangelists.  Asbury,  at  the  head  of  his  traveling 
preachers,  entered  into  the  apostolic  succession  of  these  American  bishops. 

6.  The  changing  policy  of  the  Moravian  brotherhood. — Episcopacy  and 
Methodism  suggest  that  the  Moravians  be  considered  next  in  order. 
In  Germany  the  Moravian  Church  had  participated  in  the  pietistic 
movement;  in  England,  through  Wesley,  it  was  one  of  the  sources  of  the 
Methodist  Revival;  in  America  Zinzendorf's  itinerating  "fishers"  were 
successful  propagators  of  the  Great  Awakening.  No  sooner  had  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty  immigrants  settled  in  their  frontier  town  of  Bethle- 
hem than  they  began  to  send  out  a  very  considerable  portion  of  their 
number  as  itinerant  evangelists.  By  1748  there  were  thirty-one  centers 
of  such  labor.  One  of  these  circuits  embraced  eighteen  stations,  others 
less.  These  itinerants  from  Bethlehem  reached  the  extremities  of  the 
country  in  Georgia  and  Maine.  The  stupendous  sacrifices  of  the 
Moravians  in  men  and  money  were  made  possible  by  their  zeal  and  semi- 
communistic  system.^ 

In  spite  of  the  heroism  of  the  brotherhood  time  wrought  changes  in 
its  policy.  Conferences,  still  called  Pennsylvania  synods,  were  held  as 
late  as  1748,  although  union  with  other  denominations  was  no  longer 
possible,  for  Muhlenberg  had  come  to  organize  the  Lutherans,  and 
Schlatter,  the  German  Reformed.  The  ideal  of  unity  was  noble,  but 
the  form  of  unity  attempted  was  chimerical.  This  method  of  thought 
and  activity  was  after  a  time  condemned  by  the  Moravians  themselves 
and  was  abandoned.  The  Unity  of  the  Brethren  no  longer  in  their 
thought  included  this  Lutheran  church  member  and  that  Reformed,  for 
the  Moravian  brotherhood  was  now  conceived  of  as  quite  a  separate 
church.  Their  economic  system  made  actual  incorporation  with  them 
difficult.  Even  after  this  was  given  up  their  sufferings  in  the  French 
and  Indian  War  and  the  weight  of  debt  which  came  upon  them  after  the 
death  of  Zinzendorf  hindered  their  evangelistic  work  and  growth  in 
numbers.  Then  the  fear  of  being  charged  with  proselytism  drove  them 
to  the  opposite  extreme  from  their  early  practices,  and  they  refused  to 
employ  the  legitimate  means  by  which  the  Methodists  became  a  national 
blessing.^  Yet  by  their  Nazareth  Hall  they  shared  with  other  evangelical 
bodies  in  the  honor  of  being  pioneers  in  education.^    Their  train  of 

'  J.  T.  Hamilton,  The  Moravian  Church  in  the  United  States,  p.  456. 
*  Ibid.,  p.  469.  3  Ibid.,  p.  466. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  131 

Indian  mission  stations  from  Connecticut  to  Alabama  tells  a  wonderful 
story  of  sacrifice  and  success,  of  opposition  and  outrage.  As  the  Moravi- 
ans failed  to  do  the  work  among  the  Germans  which  the  Methodists 
were  doing  among  the  English,  and  as  the  so-called  Sectarians  were 
quite  unable  to  meet  the  religious  needs  of  the  Germans  on  account  of 
\their  peculiar  and  extra-Christian  rules  and  usages,  this  task  fell  to  new 
denominations  not  handicapped  by  outworn  regulations  and  customs. 
Therefore  the  mission  of  the  Moravians  in  part  fell  to  the  United  Breth- 
ren, representing  a  union  of  progressive  elements  in  the  German  Reformed 
and  Mennonite  denominations,  and  the  Evangelical  Association,  another 
German  Methodist  church. 

7.  The  Baptists  as  revivers  oj  the  revival. — The  Baptist  denomination 
was  like  the  Moravians  and  the  German  Sectarians  in  that  it  was  without 
the  prestige  of  the  national  churches  of  the  Old  World  transplanted  in 
the  New  World.  Even  in  Rhode  Island  it  was  not  an  established  church, 
for  it  condemned  the  union  of  church  and  state.  Everywhere  in  the 
colonies  Baptists  were  looked  upon  as  irregulars,  by  the  conservatives 
at  least,  and  classed  with  the  Quakers  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  Separates 
of  Connecticut.  At  the  present  time  the  numerical  strength  of  this  com- 
munion is  two  or  three  times  that  of  any  of  the  national  churches  or  of 
any  denomination  which  possessed  in  the  colonies  the  exceptional  privi- 
leges of  an  established  church.  This  change  in  relative  popular  following 
is  a  result  of  the  Great  Awakening.  No  denomination  therefore  owes 
more  to  the  world-wide  quickening  than  the  Baptist,  yet  the  churches  of 
this  communion,  more  generally  than  the  Presbyterian  and  Congrega- 
tional, in  the  beginning  held  aloof  from  the  movement.  The  wonderful 
expansion  of  the  denomination,  when  the  mantle  of  Whitefield,  Tennent, 
and  Davenport  had  fallen  upon  its  evangelists,  came  later  than  the  period 
usually  assigned  to  the  Great  Awakening.  Baptist  success  belonged 
chiefly  to  the  period  following  the  Presbyterian  revival  in  Virginia  and 
antedated  the  early  Methodist  successes  already  recounted. 

The  baptism  of  fire  that  transformed  this  denomination  was  never- 
theless a  part  of  the  Great  Awakening,  however  weak  were  the  Baptists 
in  the  beginning,  and  however  hesitating  was  their  adoption  of  the  new 
methods.  In  the  year  1740  and  long  afterward  the  Dunkers  out- 
numbered in  Pennsylvania  the  English-speaking  Baptists.'  In  the 
Middle  Colonies,  as  in  other  sections  of  the  country,  the  Baptists 
were  divided  between  Calvinists  and  Arminians,  the  former  known  as 

■  Benedict,  A  General  History  of  the  Baptist  Denomination,  II,  430-36;  Vedder, 
A  History  of  the  Baptists  in  the  Middle  States,  p.  75. 


132     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

Particular  Baptists  and  the  latter  as  General  Baptists.  While  the  Presby- 
terians stormed  over  rules,  precedents,  and  psalm-singing,  the  Baptists 
were  no  less  at  variance  with  each  other  over  their  interpretations  of 
Scripture.  Their  churches  were  in  a  ferment  over  such  questions  as  the 
Sabbath,  laying  on  of  hands,  foot- washing,  terms  of  communion,  and 
psalm-singing.'  It  is  true  that  a  Httle  group  of  five  churches  as  far 
back  as  the  year  1707  had  organized  the  association  of  Philadelphia, 
the  earliest  Baptist  association  in  the  colonies.  In  stating  the  number 
as  five  the  congregations  at  Pennypack  and  Philadelphia  were  treated 
as  one  church,  the  only  one  in  the  province.  The  others  were  scattered 
from  Welsh  Tract  in  Delaware  and  Cohansey  in  south  New  Jersey  to 
Middletown  in  northeastern  New  Jersey.^  Though  the  number  of 
churches  had  increased  to  about  twelve  in  1740,  what  was  that  com- 
pared with  the  strength  already  attained  in  the  Middle  Colonies  by  the 
Presbyterians?^  In  1742  the  Philadelphia  Confession  was  adopted. 
This  confession  was  the  model  formula  for  associations  subsequently 
organized.  It  was  based  upon  the  Westminster  Confession  and  put  the 
Baptists  of  the  Middle  Colonies  in  essential  agreement  with  the  foremost 
promoters  of  the  revival.^  While  the  Great  Awakening  itself  brought  a 
new  subject  of  contention  into  the  churches,  it  did  not  lead  to  a  disrup- 
tion of  the  association,  for  that  body,  being  a  league  of  independent 
churches,  did  not  assume  the  legislative  and  judicial  powers  of  a  unified 
church,  the  assumption  of  which  had  led  to  the  schism  in  the  synod  of 
Philadelphia.  The  Great  Awakening  turned  the  minds  of  the  people 
from  petty  subjects  of  debate  to  questions  of  moment.  The  members 
of  the  churches  who  caught  the  spirit  of  the  world  movement  gained  a 
breadth  of  view  and  an  evangelizing  zeal  which  they  had  not  known 
before. 

While  the  memory  of  past  wrongs  tended  to  isolate  the  Baptists, 
religious  fervor  was  native  to  many  of  their  leaders  and  people.  The 
Welsh  preachers  among  them  possessed  in  goodly  measure  the  Keltic 
gifts  which  made  Christmas  Evans  pre-eminent  among  British  evangel- 
ists.s  When  Whitefield  heard  Jenkin  Jones  preach  he  pronounced  him 
to  be  the  only  Philadelphia  pastor  who  spoke  "feelingly  and  with 
authority."^    One  of  the  young  men  baptized  by  Jenkin  Jones  was 

'  Vedder,  A  History  of  the  Baptists  in  the  Middle  States,  pp.  62,  66;  Benedict,  op^ 
cit.,  I,  581. 

'  Ibid.,  I,  595;  Vedder,  op.  cit.,  p.  90. 

3  Benedict,  op.  cit.,  II,  508-17.  5  Benedict,  op.  cit.,  I,  587. 

■i  Vedder,  op.  cit.,  p.  91.  ^  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  35. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  133 

Oliver  Hart,  who  was  a  hearer  of  Whitefield  and  caught  much  of  the 
spirit  of  pastor  and  evangeUst.  Hart  went  to  Charleston  and  was  the 
leader  of  the  Baptists  in  their  remarkable  expansion  in  South  Carolina 
after  the  death  of  Chanler,  Whitefield's  friend.  Hart  and  William  Ten- 
nent,  a  Presbyterian  minister  and  son  of  William  Tennent,  of  Freehold, 
were  foremost  supporters  of  the  Revolution  and  itinerated  in  the  interior 
of  South  Carolina  under  the  appointment  of  the  Committee  of  Safety, 
stirring  up  the  people  to  the  support  of  the  patriot  cause.' 

Baptist  history  is  continually  interwoven  with  Presbyterian  in  the 
period  of  the  Great  Awakening  and  until  the  Revolutionary  War. 
Abel  Morgan,  though  educated  by  an  Old  Side  Presbyterian  minister,^ 
was  the  first  Baptist  who  was  inspired  by  Whitefield's  example  to  go 
upon  extensive  evangehstic  journeys.^  Hopewell,  memorable  for  the 
revival  under  the  leadership  of  Rowland,  had  also  a  Baptist  church,  in 
which  were  great  ingatherings  in  the  years  1747,  1764,  and  i766.-»  The 
period  frequently  represented  as  deistic  and  religiously  dead,  when  the 
people  were  distracted  by  war  and  poHtical  debate,  was  really  marked  by 
phenomenal  revivals  in  a  number  of  Baptist  and  Presbyterian  churches. 
But  it  is  true  that  there  was  no  general  religious  excitement  like  that  of 
1740.  John  Gano,  of  Hopewell,  a  young  Presbyterian,  when  troubled 
upon  the  subject  of  baptism  after  his  conversion,  resorted  to  one  of  the 
Tennents  for  advice.  Tennent  told  him  to  think  for  himself  and  not  to 
let  the  devil  destroy  his  usefulness  by  indecision.  Gano  became  one  of 
the  most  eminent  Baptist  ministers  of  his  generation.  Few  evangeUsts 
extended  their  itinerations  over  so  many  colonies  and  with  such  con- 
spicuous success.  Directly  after  his  ordination  in  1754  he  was  sent  to 
South  Carolina  upon  the  solicitation  of  Oliver  Hart.  Whitefield  was  one 
of  his  hearers  when  he  preached  his  first  sermon  at  Charleston.  In 
South  Carolina  the  piety  and  eloquence  of  Gano  were  remarkably  fruitful. 
Afterward  he  was  the  first  pastor  of  the  church  in  New  York,  was  a 
chaplain  in  the  Revolutionary  army,  and  ended  his  career  in  Kentucky, 
where,  though  far  advanced  in  years  and  partially  paralyzed,  he  partici- 
pated in  the  great  Kentucky  Revival,  preaching  with  astonishing  power. 
John  Gano,  orator  and  itinerant,  Hnked  together  the  Great  Awakening 
and  the  Kentucky  Revival.^    One  of  the  ministers  whom  Gano  accom- 

'  Benedict,  op.  cit.,  II,  139,  323-30. 

=  Ibid.,  I,  564;   Foote,  A  Sketch  of  the  Life  of  Rev.  Abel  Morgan.    In  the  Minutes 
of  the  Trenton  Baptist  Association,  1883. 

3  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  36.  *  Benedict,  op.  cit.,  I,  573- 

s  Ibid.,  II,  306-23. 


134    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

panied  to  Virginia  before  his  ordination  was  Miller,  of  Scotch  Plains. 
Miller  was  converted  under  the  preaching  of  Gilbert  Tennent.  He, 
like  Tennent,  was  a  man  of  ardent  piety  who  made  friendships  for  life.^ 
The  career  of  another  of  the  New  Jersey  pastors,  Carman,  of  Hightstown, 
illustrates  the  ferment  of  the  time.  In  his  youth  he  was  baptized  into  a 
Baptist  church.  In  manhood  he  joined  the  Quakers.  Then  he  went  to 
the  New  Side  Presbyterians.  Finally  he  returned  to  the  Baptists  and 
was  ordained  to  the  ministry.^  In  the  region  that  was  profoundly  stirred 
by  Frelinghuysen  and  the  itinerants  of  the  presbytery  of  New  Brunswick 
there  were  large  accessions  to  Baptist  churches.  From  this  region 
Baptist  evangelists  went  forth  to  proclaim  the  gospel  in  the  most  distant 
provinces. 

In  the  neighboring  province  of  Pennsylvania  the  Baptist  success 
in  New  Jersey  had  no  counterpart.  Though  the  labors  of  the  Dunkers 
were  rewarded  by  frequent  revivals  among  their  fellow  Germans,  the 
regular  Baptists  had  no  rapid  growth.^  The  sons  of  Ireland  with  few 
exceptions  knew  but  one  way  to  become  religious,  and  that  was  the 
Presbyterian  way.  In  New  York,  however,  the  growth  of  the  Baptists 
was  rapid,  for  into  that  province  there  was  pouring  a  population  of  the 
dissatisfied  and  enterprising  from  New  England.  There  was  discrimina- 
tion still  in  parts  of  New  England  against  the  Baptists  and  Separates, 
or  Strict  Congregationalists.  The  Separates  fraternized  with  the  Bap- 
tists, and  the  greater  part  coalesced  with  them.  The  remaining  Sepa- 
rates in  course  of  time  reunited  with  the  regular  Congregationalists.  It 
was  in  such  a  population  that  Drake,  of  New  Canaan,  first  a  Separate  and 
then  a  Baptist,  itinerated  till  he  had  gathered  a  church  of  nearly  six 
hundred  members  scattered  on  both  sides  of  the  Hudson  River.  This 
unwieldy  body  was  divided  into  five  distinct  churches.-*  Vermont,  the 
Hudson  Valley,  and  central  New  York  were  overrun  by  these  immigrants 
from  the  older  colonies.  Baptist  sentiment  was  strong  among  them, 
and  frequent  revivals  built  up  the  httle  Baptist  churches  which  were 
established  in  the  new  country .^ 

We  have  seen  that  the  Baptist  preachers  of  New  Jersey  were  to  a 
considerable  extent  the  heirs  of  Whitefield  and  the  Log  College  men, 
and  that  the  pioneers  of  the  same  denomination  in  New  York  were 
continuing  the  mission  and  methods  of  Davenport  and  the  founders  of 
the  Shepherd's  Tent.    Like  all  other  promoters  of  the  Great  Awakening, 

'  Benedict,  op.  cit.,  I,  576. 

» Ihid.,  I,  575.  "  Benedict,  op.  cit.,  I,  549- 

3  Vedder,  op.  cit.,  p.  75.  s  Vedder,  op.  cit.,  pp.  33-37. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  135 

they  were  described  as  purveyors  of  ignorance.  It  is  true  that  they  did 
not  require  a  college  diploma  or  its  equivalent  of  candidates  for  the 
ministry,  not  unwisely  barring  from  the  pulpit  men  whose  spiritual  gifts 
and  knowledge  of  the  world  fitted  them  for  great  usefulness  in  the  minis- 
try. Nevertheless  the  Baptists  of  the  Middle  Colonies  who  came  under 
the  influence  of  the  New  Side  Presbyterians  caught  their  enthusiasm  for 
education.  Private  academies  upon  the  model  of  the  Log  College  were 
set  up  by  several  of  the  pastors.'  The  most  famous  of  these  was  Eaton's 
academy  at  Hopewell,  New  Jersey,  founded  in  1756,  where  many 
preachers  and  representatives  of  other  professions  received  their  educa- 
tion. The  Hopewell  Academy  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  Brown 
University  as  the  Log  College  to  Princeton.^  James  Manning,  after 
studying  at  Hopewell  and  later  at  Princeton,  where  he  was  graduated, 
founded  the  College  of  Rhode  Island  in  1765.3  Rhode  Island  was 
selected  for  the  location  of  the  college  because  Baptists  were  in  control 
of  the  government  in  that  colony,  where  alone  a  charter  could  be 
obtained.  The  prime  movers  in  the  founding  and  later  in  the  endowing 
of  the  college  were  members  of  the  association  of  Philadelphia.  Man- 
ning also  brought  the  First  Baptist  Church  of  Providence  into  the  Cal- 
vinistic  fold.  Others  of  the  Arminian  order  followed  the  example  of 
the  mother  church.  Thus  the  energies  born  of  the  Great  Awakening 
led  to  the  establishment  of  the  first  Baptist  college  and  the  practical 
unification  of  the  churches  under  the  banner  of  Calvinism.'' 

The  itinerant  evangelists  of  the  Philadelphia  association,  such  as 
Hart,  Thomas,  Miller,  Van  Horn,  and  Gano,  achieved  their  greatest 
successes  in  Virginia  and  the  CaroUnas.  In  this  they  were  like  their 
predecessors,  the  New  Side  Presbyterians.  Before  the  coming  of  these 
traveling  preachers  of  the  Middle  Colonies  and  of  Shubal  Stearns,  a 

'  As  early  as  1722  Abel  Morgan,  then  pastor  at  Philadelphia,  proposed  to  the 
association  the  establishment  of  an  academy,  hoping  to  obtain  the  assistance  of  Thomas 
HoUis,  a  London  Baptist  and  the  most  liberal  benefactor  of  Harvard  College.  Mor- 
gan's study  at  Middletown  was  a  school,  and  so  was  that  of  Jenkin  Jones,  his  successor 
at  Philadelphia.  Under  the  leadership  of  Jones  the  association  raised  money  for  a 
Latin  grammar  school  at  Hopewell  under  Isaac  Eaton.  Morgan  Edwards,  the  suc- 
cessor of  Jones,  was  the  prime  mover  in  the  founding  of  the  College  of  Rhode  Island, 
Brown  University.  Keen,  The  First  Baptist  Church  of  Philadelphia,  pp.  27-48. 
Rev.  E.  Kinnersly,  the  assistant  of  Jones,  became  a  professor  in  the  college  at  Phila- 
delphia, and  a  later  pastor  of  the  same  centur>%  Dr.  W.  Rogers,  was  also  a  professor  in 
the  university.     Benedict,  op.  cit.,  I,  588. 

'Ibid.,  I,  573;  11,449- 

3  Ibid.,  II,  443-48;  Vedder,  op.  cit.,  pp.  207-12.  *  Ibid.,  p.  93. 


136    TEE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

Separate  Baptist  of  Connecticut,  there  were  General  and  Particular 
Baptists  in  Virginia,  but  their  influence  was  a  negligible  quantity  until 
ministers  commissioned  by  the  Philadelphia  association  adjusted  their 
difficulties  and  filled  them  with  evangelistic  zeal.  The  church  at 
Opeckon,  after  the  visit  of  Stearns,  went  to  such  lengths  of  New  Light 
emotionaHsm  that  some  of  the  members  lodged  a  complaint  with  the 
association  of  Philadelphia.  Miller  was  sent  to  adjust  the  new  difficulty, 
but  he  was  so  deUghted  with  the  experiences  of  these  warm-hearted 
Christians  that  he  expressed  the  wish  that  his  own  church-members  were 
like  them.^  Thomas,  prepared  at  Hopewell  Academy,  came  to  lead  the 
regular  Baptists  of  Virginia.  Though  he  was  assaulted  by  mobs,  ruffians 
even  attempting  to  take  his  life,  the  people  came  from  great  distances 
to  hear  him.  The  regulars,  however,  did  not  suffer  the  same  degree  of 
persecution  as  did  the  Separates,  for  some  of  their  meeting-houses 
were  licensed,  and  they  were  thought  to  be  less  enthusiastic  than  the 
Separates.^ 

The  religious,  social,  and  political  revolution  in  Virginia  and  adjoin- 
ing provinces  was  begun  by  the  New  Side  Presbyterians  of  the  Middle 
Colonies;  the  Philadelphia  association  of  Baptists  made  a  larger  contri- 
bution, while  in  the  end  the  Separate  Baptists,  originating  in  Connecticut, 
who  finally  united  with  the  regular  Baptists,  furnished  the  greater  num- 
ber of  voices,  votes,  and  muskets.  Shubal  Stearns  was  a  minister  of  the 
Separates  who  became  a  Baptist.  He  was  without  college  training, 
like  most  of  the  Separates,  because  the  Shepherd's  Tent  had  been 
abolished  by  law,  yet  he  was  acquainted  with  men  and  books.  Believing 
in  the  immediate  teaching  of  the  Spirit,  he  was  strongly  impressed  that 
there  was  an  important  work  for  him  in  the  distant  west.  He  therefore 
led  a  bit  of  a  colony  to  Opeckon,  in  the  Valley  of  Virginia,  and  afterward 
to  North  Carolina.  In  1755  a  Separate  Baptist  church  with  sixteen 
members  was  constituted  at  Sandy  Creek.  This  was  the  beginning  of 
the  Separate  Baptist  denomination  in  the  South.^ 

To  the  surrounding  population  the  principles  and  practices  of  the 
newcomers  were  grotesquely  novel.  To  these  North  CaroHnians  the 
performance  of  certain  outward  duties  was  the  sum  of  religion,  for  they 
were  unacquainted  with  the  ideas  of  conviction  and  conversion.  Stearns's 
voice  was  so  pathetic  and  his  glance  so  penetrating  that  stories  were  told 
in  that  country  of  his  power  to  enchant.     Young  men,  drawn  by  curiosity 

'  Semple,  A  History  of  the  ...  .  Baptists  in  Virginia,  pp.  375-77;  Benedict, 
op.  cit.,  II,  23-28. 

^Ibid.,  II,  28-36;  Semple,  op.  cit.,  378-85.  ^  Ibid.,pp.  13-16. 


TRIUMPHANT  EVANGELISM  137 

to  his  out-of-door  meetings,  fell  to  the  ground  and  afterward  became 
ministers.  The  sixteen  members  of  the  little  church  were  increased  to 
six  hundred  and  six.  The  churches  which  grew  out  of  this  revival  at 
Sandy  Creek  formed  an  association  in  1758,  the  third  organization  of  the 
kind,  for  the  missionary  labors  of  Oliver  Hart  in  South  Carolina  had 
led  to  the  formation  of  a  second  in  1751.' 

Daniel  Marshall  was  a  lay  preacher  in  the  little  church  at  Sandy 
Creek.  He  had  been  a  deacon  in  New  England,  but  he  was  set  on  fire  by 
the  preaching  of  Whitefield  and  became  an  exhorter.  Believing  that  the 
millennium  was  about  to  dawn  and  that  the  Indians  were  the  lost  tribes  of 
Israel,  he  penetrated  the  wilderness  for  their  conversion  without  scrip  or 
purse.  He  was  rewarded  with  some  degree  of  success,  but  war  necessi- 
tated his  removal.  Then  he  joined  Stearns  in  Virginia,  became  a  Baptist, 
was  licensed  to  preach,  and  later  was  ordained  to  the  ministry.  Marshall 
organized  the  first  Separate  Baptist  church  in  Virginia.  Among  his 
converts  were  men  of  influence.^  Then  he  moved  to  South  Carolina 
where  his  one  church  became  an  association  of  Separate  Baptist  churches. 
At  last  he  went  to  Georgia  and  established  the  Baptist  cause  there.  Like 
many  other  Baptist  preachers,  Marshall  suffered  for  his  adherence  to 
the  Revolution.^ 

The  spread  of  the  new  evangel  was  like  fire  in  the  Old  Dominion. 
The  men  in  power  took  alarm  lest  the  old  order  of  things  should  go 
down  in  a  wave  of  democracy.  Several  preachers  were  arrested  in 
Spottsylvania  county  as  disturbers  of  the  peace,  for  it  was  charged 
that  they  could  not  meet  a  man  on  the  road  without  ramming  a  text  of 
Scripture  down  his  throat.  While  in  prison  at  Fredericksburg,  Waller 
and  his  associates  preached  through  the  grates  to  the  people  outside. 
The  discharge,  which  came  after  long  waiting,  issued  in  a  popular  tri- 
umph. Now  the  preachers  of  water  and  fire  carried  their  crusade  into 
the  older  counties,  for  appeals  came  to  them  from  all  quarters.  Mobs 
broke  in  upon  their  meetings.  They  suffered  much  as  the  Methodists 
were  suffering  in  England.  Yet  their  persecution  won  them  friends  in 
all  classes.  Larger  and  larger  numbers  of  the  sober  common  people 
were  convinced  by  the  burning  words  of  the  Baptist  preachers  and  by 
their  Uves  and  trials,  which  attested  to  the  truth  of  their  teaching.^ 

The  unlettered  preachers  who  were  thrown  into  the  foul  jails  of  the 
eighteenth  century  because  they  preached  the  gospel  to  the  poor  with 

'  Benedict,  op.  cit.,  II,  366-68;  Vedder,  op.  cit.,  pp.  95-97. 
*  Sample,  op.  cit.,  pp.  19-24;  Benedict,  op.  cit.,  II,  330-39. 
3  Ihid.,  II,  350-55;  Semple,  op.  cit.,  pp.  16-19.  ''  Ibid.,  pp.  24-42. 


138    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

such  alarming  success  turned  upon  their  tormentors  and  charged  the 
ministers  of  the  estabhshment  with  ignorance  of  true  reHgion  and  with 
the  violation  of  the  rules  of  morahty.  Whatever  the  measure  of  truth 
in  these  accusations,  the  accusers  believed  them  and  so  did  their  hearers. 
More  and  more  the  established  church  was  felt  to  be  an  appanage  of 
monarchy,  but  the  common  people  were  becoming  passionately  repub- 
Ucan.  The  dissenters  became  so  strong  that  the  Revolutionary  leaders, 
even  when  churchmen  and  members  of  the  old  aristocracy,  were  com- 
pelled to  make  concession  after  concession  to  them/  The  overthrow  of 
the  established  church  was  the  victory  of  the  Baptists  and  Presbyterians. 
The  regular  Baptists  supported  the  more  numerous  and  aggressive 
Separate  Baptists  in  their  warfare  on  privilege.  After  maintaining 
friendly  relations  for  years  they  entered  into  union  in  the  year  1787.^ 

Thus  we  have  seen  that  in  the  Baptist  denomination  the  supporters 
of  the  revival  were  few  in  1740  and  its  critics  many,  but  the  revival 
gave  its  supporters  such  dynamic  power  that  the  denomination  fairly 
leaped  into  a  position  of  influence.  Impelled  by  the  Great  Awakening, 
the  churches  united  under  the  creed  of  Whitefield  and  the  leading  pro- 
moters of  experimental  religion  in  the  colonies.  It  was  the  Great 
Awakening  too  that  bestirred  the  Baptists  to  set  up  schools  of  higher 
learning.  Those  who  opposed  these  changes  were  either  convinced  of 
their  error  or  left  far  behind  to  stagnate  and  disappear.  Those  who  felt 
the  deepest,  who  threw  discretion  to  the  winds  by  giving  full  vent  to  their 
emotions,  but  who  were  at  the  same  time  thoroughly  genuine,  making 
every  sacrifice  for  their  religion,  and  who  united  fervor  to  the  strictest 
morality  then  known — the  Separate  Baptists — made  the  greatest  con- 
tribution to  triumphant  evangelism.  The  history  of  this  communion, 
as  of  all  others  considered  in  this  chapter,  illustrates  the  power  of  religion 
in  society  when  belief,  made  red-hot  by  feeling,  becomes  faith. 

'  Semple,  op.  cit..  pp.  43-54;  Benedict,  op.  cit.,  II,  64-86. 
*  Semple,  op.  cit.,  p.  99, 


CHAPTER  X 
CONCLUSION 

The  purpose  of  this  concluding  chapter  is  to  give  a  summary  view 
of  the  boundaries,  characteristics,  and  results  of  the  evangelical  revival, 
with  special  reference  to  its  course  in  the  Middle  Colonies. 

The  Great  Awakening  has  sometimes  been  represented  as  a  tempest 
of  ungoverned  passions  that  swept  over  the  colonies,  leaving  wreckage 
everywhere  in  the  alienations  and  divisions  in  families,  neighborhoods, 
and  churches,  the  undermining  of  cherished  institutions,  and  a  relapse 
into  indifference,  debauchery,  and  irrehgion.'  An  impartial  study  of 
the  period,  however,  free  from  partisan  and  denominational  bias,  leads 
to  a  very  different  conclusion.  It  is  that  thousands  and  thousands^ 
were  given  by  the  Great  Awakening  a  new  view  of  life's  values,  and 
from  this  view  were  derived  new  energies  and  new  sympathies  which 
gave  direction  not  only  to  the  subsequent  career  of  these  thousands  but 
to  the  development  of  the  whole  American  people.  It  was  more  than 
wave  on  wave  of  excitement;  it  was  a  transforming  process  in  the  nation's 
life. 

The  background  of  the  international  revival,  of  which  the  Great 
Awakening  was  a  part,  was  the  decadent  civilization  of  the  eighteenth 
century.     The  trend  of  the  age  was  away  from  reUgion,  away  from  the 

'  This  is  the  burden  of  Charles  Chauncy's  Seasonable  Thoughts.  Chauncy  was 
in  sentiment  a  Universalist  and  was  a  particular  friend  of  Mayhew,  who  was  of  pro- 
nounced Unitarian  views.  See  Bradford's  Life  of  Dr.  Mayhew.  F.  M.  Davenport,  in 
his  Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals,  is  led  astray  by  the  exaggerations  of  Chauncy. 
A  reading  of  the  two  volumes  of  the  Christian  History,  consisting  of  sober  accounts  by 
pastors  of  New  England  churches  which  came  under  the  powerful  influence  of  the 
revival,  would  correct  an  unfavorable  view,  but  Professor  Davenport  seems  not  to 
have  consulted  these  testimonies  of  the  most  eminent  and  pious  ministers  of  New 
England. 

'  President  Davies,  of  Princeton,  referring  to  the  power  of  the  gospel  in  his  student 
days,  says:  "I  have  seen  thousands  at  once  melted  down  under  it,  all  eager  to  hear  as 
for  life,  and  scarcely  a  dry  eye  to  be  seen  among  them.  Thousands  still  remain 
shining  monuments  of  the  power  of  divine  grace  in  that  glorious  day"  (Wesbter,  A 
History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  550).  Chapell,  in  The  Great  Awakening  of  1740, 
gives  an  estimate  of  fifty  thousand  conversions  in  the  Great  Awakening,  but  the  pres- 
ent writer  makes  no  estimate,  finding  no  definite  basis  for  such  attempt. 

139 


I40    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

ideality,  strenuousness,  and  rigor  of  a  former  time.  A  new  period  of 
moral  laxity,  religious  indifference,  and  philosophic  revolt  had  opened 
in  Europe.  These  influences  were  quickly  felt  in  the  colonies,  for  every 
window  was  open  toward  the  home  lands,  but  there  was  Httle  communica- 
tion of  ideas  between  the  colonies.  Though  the  colonies  differed  greatly 
from  each  other  in  their  religious  conditions,  there  were  causes  of  religious 
decline  in  all  peculiar  to  colonial  life. 

What  was  to  be  done  to  stem  the  tide  of  irreligion  ?  The  word  "  con- 
servatism" sums  up  the  answer  of  the  majority  of  the  sincerely  religious. 
The  conservatives  of  each  denomination  revered  their  own  particular 
creed  as  the  creation  of  a  superior  race  of  men,  and  therefore  as  a  finality. 
Several  of  these  denominations  were  national  churches  in  the  Old  World. 
Therefore  every  reforming  movement  or  spirit  of  change  had  to  make 
headway  against  racial  prejudices  and  veneration  of  ancestral  faith. 
The  customs  of  the  past  were  invested  with  sanctity.  Leaders  sought  to 
quarantine  their  people  from  the  contagion  of  change.  But  the  enthusi- 
asm of  the  fathers  could  not  be  reproduced.  The  religion  of  the  sons 
was  without  vitality  and  power. 

Then  it  was  that  primitive  Christianity  sprang  up  in  different  parts 
of  the  world  almost  spontaneously,  though  generally  there  was  an  influ- 
ence traceable  to  German  Pietism.  In  the  new  teaching  emphasis  was 
not  placed  upon  an  inherited  and  formal  profession,  or  upon  the  magic 
eflEicacy  of  ceremony,  but  upon  an  inner  experience  with  its  new  passion 
for  the  service  of  God  through  the  service  of  man.  The  seat  of  rehgion 
passed  back  from  the  head  to  the  heart,  and  religion  became  again  a 
force. 

The  Great  Awakening  in  the  Middle  Colonies  had  several  distinct 
sources.  One  of  them  was  German  Pietism.  The  revival  at  German- 
town  in  1722  may  be  selected  somewhat  arbitrarily  as  the  date  of  the 
beginning  of  the  Great  Awakening  among  the  Germans.  Most  assuredly 
the  ministry  of  Frelinghuysen  was  an  important  source.  His  first 
ingathering  in  1726  may  be  selected  as  the  beginning  of  the  Great 
Awakening  among  the  Dutch.  The  establishment  of  the  Log  College 
in  1726,  followed  by  the  revivals  of  its  early  graduates  in  1729  and  1732, 
was  the  third  source,  ranking  second  to  none  in  the  history  of  the  Great 
Awakening  in  the  Middle  Colonies.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the 
revival  among  the  Presbyterians.  The  Edwards  revival  of  1734  in  its 
influence  on  New  England  men  in  the  Middle  Colonies  was  another 
source,  evidenced  by  the  revival  at  Newark  in  1739.  This  influence  in 
the  Middle  Colonies  was  cumulative,  following  and  strengthening  the 


CONCLUSION  141 

earlier  evangelical  influences.  The  establishment  of  the  Holy  Club 
at  Oxford  and  the  coming  of  the  Methodist  evangehst  to  the  Middle 
Colonies  in  1739  were  the  fifth  source  of  the  Great  Awakening  in  this 
section.  It  was  then  that  the  various  streams  united  into  a  mighty 
river,  a  flood  of  flame,  which  swept  over  the  country. 

The  name  "Great  Awakening"  was  especially  appropriate  to  the 
Whitefield  revival,  which  became  powerful  in  the  Middle  Colonies  and  the 
"coast  region  of  the  far  southern  provinces,  and  then  in  1740  burst  into 
astonishing  flame  in  New  England.  A  characteristic  feature  of  the 
evangelical  revival  in  this  and  in  all  lands  was  religious  excitement, 
more  intense  than  at  any  previous  time  since  the  Puritan  Revival,  and 
more  widely  extended  than  in  any  other  religious  movement  since  the 
Reformation.  Waves  of  feeUng,  comparable  to  that  seen  in  war  or 
financial  panic  or  political  crisis,  swept  from  community  to  community. 
The  same  phenomenon  had  appeared  in  the  earlier  Edwards  revival, 
which  began  at  Northampton  and  spread  through  western  Massachu- 
setts and  Connecticut.  Accordingly  the  name  "Great  Awakening" 
was  applied  in  New  England  to  these  two  waves  of  religious  excitement. 
The  subsequent  Presbyterian  and  Baptist  revivals  in  the  South,  the 
one  beginning  at  Hanover  in  1742  and  the  other  at  Sandy  Creek  in  1755, 
were  in  close  dependence  upon  these  earlier  revivals  and  were  quite  as 
remarkable.  Therefore  they  must  be  included  in  the  four  great  revivals 
of  the  Great  Awakening. 

But  the  name  must  not  be  Umited  to  the  four  most  widespread  excite- 
ments. Other  revivals  mentioned  in  the  list  of  distinct  sources  of  the 
Great  Awakening  in  the  Middle  Colonies  were  certainly  parts  of  it. 
There  were  many  revivals  in  the  Middle  Colonies  and  in  other  sections, 
later  than  the  Whitefield  revival,  which  must  be  included,  for  they  were 
all  parts  of  the  new  religious  quickening.  Some  were  as  late  as  the  sur- 
prising outburst  at  Easthampton,  Long  Island,  in  1764,  under  the 
pastorate  of  Samuel  Buell.^  Recognition  must  also  be  given  to  the  early 
successes  of  the  Methodists  before  the  Revolutionary  War.  Some  of  the 
revivals  of  the  various  denominations  were  quite  as  phenomenal,  though 
circumscribed  in  extent,  and  some  were  quite  as  important  in  their 
ultimate  results  as  were  the  four  great  revivals.  The  Great  Awakening 
is  therefore  best  defined,  not  as  successive  waves  of  reUgious  excitement, 
but  as  an  intercolonial  evangelical  movement,  part  of  the  Methodist 
Revival  in  the  empire  and  part  of  the  world-wide  Evangelical  Revival. 

'  Buell,  A  Faithful  Narrative  of  the  Remarkable  Revival  of  Religion  in  the  Congre- 
gation of  Eastliamplon  on  Long  Island. 


142     THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

Whether  the  Great  Awakening  is  conceived  of  as  a  remarkable 
effusion  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  borrowing  the  description  of  its  promoters, 
or  as  quickened  religious  activity,  it  was  followed  by  a  period  of  compara- 
tive stagnation.  This  first  came  to  New  England,  then  to  the  Middle 
Colonies,  and  finally  to  the  South  at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolutionary 
War.  When  Whitefield  gave  a  motto  to  the  soldiers  who  sailed  away 
with  his  friend  Pepperrill  to  take  Louisburg,^  the  significance  of  his  act 
was  that  the  New  Englanders  were  now  for  a  full  half-century  to  turn 
their  minds  away  from  the  exclusive  attention  to  the  affairs  of  religion 
which  had  occupied  them  during  the  progress  of  the  revival.  The 
earlier  expeditions  against  the  French  did  not  command  the  same  inter- 
est in  the  Middle  Colonies  that  they  did  in  New  England,  but  the  French 
and  Indian  War,  the  fierce  debate  with  England,  and  the  Revolutionary 
War  combined  with  previous  causes  of  religious  decline  to  retard  the 
progress  of  evangelism  in  the  Middle  Colonies,  and  finally  in  the  whole 
country.  There  was,  however,  no  section  without  occasional  religious 
revivals.  As  a  movement  the  evangelical  revival  never  for  a  moment 
ceased  to  exist  and  to  exert  a  powerful  influence. 

Having  seen  that  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  movement  was  the 
necessity  of  conversion  and  that  the  most  striking  characteristic  was 
religious  excitement,  and  having  defined  the  boundaries  in  time,  there 
remains  to  set  in  array  other  distinguishing  marks  of  the  Great  Awaken- 
ing. From  the  doctrine  of  the  new  birth  there  logically  followed  the 
belief  in  the  divine  guidance  of  the  converted  person,  an  assistance  akin 
to  inspiration.  Evangelicals  did  not  believe  that  their  unaided  intelli- 
gence could  properly  interpret  the  Bible,  and  in  this  they  approached 
the  Quaker  position.^  This  rehance  on  divine  guidance  sometimes  led 
to  a  whimsical  following  of  impulses,  impressions,^  and  the  lot.''    This 

'  Billingsley,  Life  of  the  Rev.  George  Whitefield,  p.  245. 

^  Timothy  Allen,  for  declaring  "that  the  Bible  could  not,  of  itself,  or  by  any  man's 
efforts,  do  the  unregenerate  sinner  any  more  good  than  the  reading  of  an  old  almanac," 
was  deposed  from  the  Congregational  ministry  in  1741.  Webster,  op.  cit.,  p.  584; 
Fox,  Journal,  p.  72. 

3  Guidance  through  impulses  and  impressions  constantly  appear  in  the  writings 
of  Quakers,  Pietists,  Moravians,  and  Methodists.  There  were  also  Calvinists,  like 
Davenport  and  Barber,  who  held  this  notion  before  coming  under  the  influence  of 
Whitefield.  Jonathan  Edwards  opposed  this  dangerous  tendency;  his  attitude  toward 
this  question  became  dominant  among  American  Calvinists.  Yet  there  were  surpris- 
ing instances  of  its  recurrence,  as  when  the  learned  Morgan  Edwards,  of  Philadelphia, 
relying  on  a  strong  presentiment,  prophesied  in  a  sermon  that  he  would  die  in  the 
year  1770,  but  he  lived  till  1795.     Keen,  The  First  Baptist  Church  of  Philadelphia, p.  4g. 

^  Whitefield  reproved  Wesley  for  relying  on  the  lot  when  he  published  a  sermon 
against  Calvinism.  The  Moravians  employed  the  lot,  and  from  them  the  early 
Methodists  borrowed  the  custom.    Tyerman,  Wesley,  I,  323. 


CONCLUSION  143 

extreme  tendency  in  Whitefield  and  Davenport  was  soon  corrected,  but 
it  has  survived  in  certain  circles  to  the  present  time. 

To  a  measurably  different  attitude  toward  spiritual  illumination 
from  that  entertained  by  conservatives  was  added  a  strikingly  different 
attitude  toward  creeds.  The  evangelicals  accepted  the  creeds  of  their 
respective  denominations,  but  the  tendency  was  to  emphasize  the 
fundamental  agreement  of  the  leading  Protestant  bodies  and  to  treat 
the  Bible  alone  as  authoritative.  They  had  closer  sympathy  with 
evangeUcals  of  other  denominations,  respectively,  than  with  opposers 
of  the  revival  in  their  own.  Therefore  Whitefield  was  content  to  see 
his  converts  leave  his  own  communion  and  join  the  Presbyterians  and 
Baptists.'  He  was  so  true  an  exemplar  of  the  spirit  of  this  world  move- 
ment that  he  founded  no  new  sect.*  It  was  only  necessity,  laid  upon 
Wesley  by  conservatives,  that  drove  him  to  a  different  course  against 
his  will.3  Evangelism  was  a  unifying  principle  in  that  it  minimized 
accidental  differences,  while  conservatism  magnified  them.  Yet  revival- 
ism eventually  led  to  various  restatements  of  religious  philosophy  to 
give  more  adequate  expression  to  the  principles  it  had  brought  into 
prominence.'' 

It  is  sometimes  represented  that  the  unprecedented  success  of  the 
Great  Awakening,  in  the  face  of  bitter  opposition  and  in  spite  of  serious 
defects  in  itself,  was  due  to  the  Calvinistic  doctrines  preached  through- 
out the  colonies. 5  No  doubt  individual  experiences  of  thousands  were 
molded  by  the  Calvinistic  teaching  in  which  they  were  drilled  and  by  the 
form  of  that  teaching  employed  by  Whitefield,  Tennent,  and  other  lead- 
ing evangelists.  But  the  successful  propagators  of  the  revival  in  the 
colonies  were  not  all  Calvinists.  The  Moravians,  Lutherans,  and  Metho- 
dists shared  in  it.  When  regarded  as  a  world  movement  the  success  of 
the  revival  is  clearly  shown  not  to  have  been  dependent  upon  any  par- 
ticular form  of  religious  philosophy. 

A  more  insistent  question  than  creed  was  polity.  Church  govern- 
ment, as  well  as  civil  government,  has  its  constitutional  questions,  and 
these  were  hotly  debated  in  the  period  of  the  Great  Awakening.    The 

'  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  pp.  23,  39. 

*  New  England  Weekly  Journal,  Januar>-  8, 1 740;  Whitefield,  Journal,  No.  6,  p.  40. 

3  Tyerman,  op.  cil.,  Ill,  436. 

•*  The  works  of  Jonathan  Edwards  and  Joseph  Bellamy  are  illustrations.  Bellamy, 
True  Religion  Delineated,  or  Experimental  Religion. 

s  This  is  the  view  of  Hodge.  See  his  Constitutional  History  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  Part  II,  pp.  46-50. 


144    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

conservatives  were  in  the  majority  in  the  various  denominations.  The 
evangehcals  were  compelled  to  insist  on  the  right  of  the  individual  to  a 
wider  liberty  than  the  conservatives  were  disposed  to  grant  him.  The 
battle  cry  of  the  conservatives  was  therefore  "order  and  discipline."  Of 
the  evangelicals  it  was  ''the  right  of  conscience."  They  made  a  dis- 
tinction between  essential  and  circumstantial  rules.  The  position  of 
the  evangelicals  was  strikingly  similar  to  that  of  the  Americans  in 
their  debate  with  England  after  the  French  and  Indian  War,  for  they 
sought  to  establish  constitutional  limitations  upon  the  authority  of 
rulers. 

The  main  questions  of  polity  concern  the  terms  of  admission  to  church- 
membership  and  the  ministry.  In  this  connection  we  must  consider 
the  charge  of  censoriousness  preferred  by  the  conservatives  against  the 
evangelicals.  The  national  churches  of  England,  Scotland,  and  Holland 
received  candidates  into  full  church-membership  if  they  possessed  a 
competent  degree  of  religious  knowledge  and  lived  a  moral  life.  It  was 
hoped  that  such  were  converted.  The  evangelicals  assumed  that  a  large 
percentage  of  the  church-members  were  unconverted,  addressed  them  as 
such,  and  exhorted  them  to  seek  clear  evidence  of  conversion.  They 
were  also  convinced  that  a  majority  of  the  ministers  were  unconverted, 
and  proclaimed  this  conviction  from  the  housetops.  This  attitude  to 
the  majority  of  church-members  and  ministers  was  resented  by  opposers 
of  the  revival  as  uncharitable.  Reformers  are  always  charged  with 
censoriousness.  Several  of  the  leading  evangelists  in  the  beginning, 
it  must  be  confessed,  did  show  toward  their  opposers  an  asperity  more 
exasperating  than  convincing.  As  the  revival  advanced  the  early 
narrowness  in  the  definition  of  conversion  was  corrected  in  many,  and 
asperity  toward  opposers  of  the  revival  was  quite  overcome  in  such  men 
as  Whitefield  and  Tennent.  On  the  other  hand,  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  the  scurrility  and  baseness  of  most  publications  against  the 
revival  were  in  sharp  contrast  with  the  sobriety  of  most  published 
defenses  of  the  movement. 

The  opponents  of  the  revival  exaggerated  beyond  measure  the  bodily 
agitations  which  sometimes  resulted  from  the  strong  emotional  appeal 
of  the  evangelists.  Sudden  fears  and  joys  had  their  natural  effect  upon 
persons  who  were  unrestrained  by  public  sentiment  from  unmeasured 
expression  of  their  emotion.  There  was  always  the  danger  of  the 
propagation  of  these  phenomena  by  suggestion.  Promoters  of  the 
revival  sometimes  yielded  to  the  temptation  of  utilizing  these  commo- 


CONCLUSION  145 

tions  to  increase  the  religious  excitement.'  It  was  a  dangerous  expedi- 
ent, but  where  public  sentiment  was  not  arrayed  against  it  more  good 
than  evil  was  the  result.  Yet  sometimes  ignorant  persons  imagined 
themselves  converted  because  of  these  physical  disturbances,  although 
there  was  no  revulsion  against  their  former  manner  of  life  and  no  pas- 
sionate surrender  to  higher  aims.  In  Germany  Francke  did  not  at 
first  repress  such  extravagance  but  afterward  attempted  to  do  so.  It 
was  only  on  very  rare  occasions  that  there  was  any  excessive  emotional- 
ism in  the  meetings  of  Whitefield.  Terror  had  a  larger  place  in  Tennent's 
preaching  than  in  Whitefield's,  but  he  endeavored  to  curb  emotional 
demonstration.  Edwards  gave  these  phenomena  qualified  approval,  but 
Dickinson  set  his  face  against  them,  and  so  did  the  Boston  pastors. 
Warned  by  the  excesses  of  a  few  under  the  frenzied  leadership  of  Daven- 
port, all  these  promoters  of  the  revival  became  outspoken  against  emo- 
tional extremes.  Very  soon  Davenport  returned  to  a  perfectly  sane 
course  and  was  afterward  an  effective  evangelist  in  the  Presbyterian 
revival  in  Virginia.  The  Separate  Baptists  of  the  South  inherited  from 
the  Separates  of  Connecticut  an  enthusiasm  which  was  remarkably 
effective  in  the  propagation  of  a  reUgious  and  moral  reformation.  The 
excrescences  of  this  enthusiasm  were  gradually  eliminated  in  subsequent 
revivals  of  the  Baptists  in  those  parts,  but  its  fire  and  force  happily  long 
remained.^ 

If  there  was  little  ground  for  the  criticism  of  physical  phenomena, 
still  less  was  there  for  the  criticism  of  itinerant  preaching.  Itineracy 
in  the  view  of  the  conservatives  was  unwarranted  by  Scripture  and  was 
destructive  of  order.^  This  term  was  applied  to  the  evangelistic  journeys 
of  Whitefield  and  others  like  him  who  left  their  parishes,  or  were  without 
parishes,  and  preached  in  the  charges  of  other  ministers  as  promoters  of 
the  revival.  The  conservatives  declared  that  it  was  the  duty  of  White- 
field  to  remain  at  Savannah,  and  of  Tennent  at  New  Brunswick.'' 
Itineracy  of  this  sort  was  then  a  novelty  and  one  of  the  most  effective 
engines  of  the  movement.  A  large  number  of  gifted  men  were  thus 
employed  in  the  height  of  the  revival,  going  from  church  to  church  upon 

'  This  may  have  been  true  of  the  early  preaching  of  Davenport  and  Rowland, 
before  they  were  convinced  of  their  mistaken  methods,  yet  they  were  probably 
unconscious  of  endeavoring  directly  to  produce  bodily  effects. 

*  Semple,  A  History  of  the  ...  .  Baptists  in  Virginia,  p.  59. 
3  Boston  Evening  Post,  November  19,  1744. 

*  The  first  bad  thing  attending  the  Work,  according  to  Chauncy,  was  itinerant 
preaching.    Seasonable  Tlwughls,  pp.  36-76. 


146    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

the  invitation  of  the  pastors.  Itineracy  of  another  sort  was  also 
successfully  employed  by  the  New  Side  Presbyterians.  Having  few 
ministers  and  many  vacancies,  the  ministers  and  probationers  were  sent 
on  long  journeys,  bringing  encouragement  to  many  lonely  settlements. 
Later  the  Methodists  reduced  this  kind  of  itineracy  to  a  system. 

Lay  preaching  was  another  measure  for  the  promotion  of  the  revival 
which  was  regarded  by  the  conservatives  as  supremely  disorderly. 
Indeed  the  Presbyterian  and  Congregational  promoters  of  the  revival 
agreed  with  the  conservatives  in  this  particular.^  Collegia  pietatis, 
religious  societies,  bands,  and  classes  were  organized  among  the  people. 
Through  these  agencies  the  Great  Awakening  became  a  people's  move- 
ment. Many  laymen  became  effective  leaders  and  forceful  speakers. 
In  some  of  the  denominations,  as  the  Separates,  Baptists,  Moravians, 
and  Methodists,  the  transition  was  easy  from  lay  exhorters  and  lay 
preachers  to  ordained  ministers.  The  Methodists  and  Baptists,  by 
encouraging  lay  preaching  and  the  advancement  of  men  whose  gifts 
were  developed  in  the  school  of  life,  became  great  popular  denominations, 
while  the  Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists,  by  insisting  upon  an 
artificial  and  unbending  requirement,  lost  the  advantage  which  was 
given  them  as  the  early  promoters  of  the  Great  Awakening. 

Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  the  Great  Awakening  gave  a  tremendous 
impulse  to  education,  both  ministerial  and  secular.  The  Presbyterian, 
Reformed,  and  Congregational  churches  required  a  thorough  educa- 
tional preparation  of  candidates  for  the  ministry.  There  were  no  public 
academies  in  the  Middle  Colonies.  Therefore  evangelical  ministers 
bestirred  themselves  to  provide  educational  facilities  for  the  multitude 
of  gifted  young  men  that  the  revival  thrust  forward,  to  prepare  them  to 
preach  the  gospel.  Thus  were  bom  not  only  many  private  schools, 
modeled  upon  the  Log  College,  but  chartered  schools  like  the  College 
of  New  Jersey  at  Princeton  and  Queen's  College  at  New  Brunswick. 
A  great  number  of  colleges  and  other  educational  institutions,  westward, 
northward,  and  southward,  were  founded  by  men  whose  educational 
ancestry  may  be  traced  back  to  the  Log  College.  Other  schools,  from 
Dartmouth  in  New  Hampshire  to  Bethesda  in  Georgia,  were  fruits  of  the 
Great  Awakening.  ReHgious  bodies  like  the  Separates,  Baptists, 
Moravians,  and  Methodists,  which  did  not  make  a  diploma  an  invariable 

'  Gilbert  Tennent  wrote  a  letter  to  a  minister  in  Connecticut  strongly  condemn- 
ing public  and  authoritative  exhortation  and  instruction  by  laymen.  He  restricts 
this  to  men  "called  of  God  as  Aaron,"  that  is,  ordained  ministers.  He  thinks  that  the 
itinerations  of  laymen  would  lead  to  dreadful  consequences  to  the  churches.  Boston 
News-Letter,  April  15,  1742. 


CONCLUSION  147 

requirement  for  ordination,  nevertheless  coveted  the  best  education  pos- 
sible for  their  ministers.  The  energy  generated  by  the  revival  led  to  the 
founding  of  such  schools  as  Hopewell  Academy,  Brown  University, 
Nazareth  Hall,  and  Cokesbury  College.  The  evangelicals  of  every 
denomination  ranked  piety  higher  than  intellectual  training  as  a  quaUfica- 
tion  for  the  ministry.  The  conservatives  therefore  everywhere  railed 
against  them  as  the  apostles  of  ignorance.  Some  promoters  of  the 
revival,  it  is  true,  in  their  loyalty  to  piety  decried  education.  This 
spirit  has  survived  to  the  present  time  in  ever-narrowing  circles.' 

So  much  for  the  measures  employed ;  doctrine  has  had  little  emphasis 
in  this  study,  but  a  history  of  the  Great  Awakening  must  make  some 
reference  to  Luther's  doctrine  and  the  relation  of  this  doctrine  to  moral 
reform.  The  evangelicals  restored  the  old  Reformation  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith.  The  conservatives  therefore  called  them  Anti- 
nomians.^  Frankhn  thought  that  Andrews,  his  conservative  Presby- 
terian pastor,  neglected  moral  questions,^  and  Andrews  complained  of 
the  evangelicals,  alleging  the  same  neglect.''  According  to  Gilbert  Ten- 
nent  the  Moravians  were  Antinomians.s  This  term  was  also  cast  upon 
the  Separates  of  Connecticut.  It  was  a  charge  lightly  made  against  all 
lovers  of  Luther's  doctrine.  Only  an  insignificant  number  failed  to  see 
the  necessary  connection  between  Christian  experience  and  right  moral 
conduct.^  The  evangelicals  held  their  followers  to  a  rigorous  moral  code 
that  greatly  promoted  the  sobriety,  industry,  and  moral  progress  of  the 
people.  But  the  value  of  play,  even  for  children,  and  the  need  of  whole- 
some diversion  were  not  properly  recognized  by  those  stem  seekers  after 
the  favor  of  God.^ 

'  The  Separates  of  Connecticut,  after  the  suppression  of  the  Shepherd's  Tent  at 
London,  decried  human  learning  as  related  to  religious  truth.  They  professed  to 
rely  solely  on  the  enlightenment  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Blake,  The  Separates  of  New  Eng- 
land, pp.  204-8.  The  Separate  Baptists  inherited  this  view,  but  the  influence  of  the 
regular  Baptists  was  strong  for  education.  Ramsay  said  in  1808  of  the  South  Caro- 
lina Baptists,  "Among  the  different  sects  of  christians  in  South  Carolina,  none  have 
made  earlier  or  greater  exertions  for  promoting  religious  knowledge  than  the  baptists" 
(Ramsay,  South  Carolina,  II,  365). 

'  Boston  Evening  Post,  January  4,  1742. 

J  Franklin,  Autobiography,  pp.  97-99. 

<  Webster,  A  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  178. 

s  Gilbert  Tennent,  Some  Account,  p.  43.  ^  John  Cross,  for  example. 

'  The  hours  of  labor  and  study  of  the  orphans  at  Bethesda  were  regulated.  The 
only  recreation  apparently  was  a  walk  once  a  day  with  master  or  mistress  "to  bless 
and  admire  their  great  Benefactor"  (Creator).  New  England  Weekly  Journal, 
September  23,  1740. 


148    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

While  the  Great  Awakening  revived  a  Puritan  rigor,  helpful  in  general 
but  harmful  in  particulars,  a  new  outlet  for  the  chastened  pursuit  of 
happiness  was  found  in  the  new  psalmody.  It  was  the  evangelical  revival 
that  gave  to  the  world  the  songs  and  melodies  of  the  Moravians,  as 
sensuous  and  elusive  as  the  Song  of  Solomon,  the  "Gospel  Sonnets" 
of  the  Erskines,  the  immortal  hymns  of  the  Wesleys,  and  the  psalms  that 
made  Watts  the  EngHsh  David.  The  conservatives  stormed  against  the 
new  outburst  of  song  as  a  profanation.  They  even  resisted  the  intro- 
duction of  improved  translations  of  the  Psalms,  preferring  to  wail  out 
the  hmping  lines  made  sacred  by  use." 

Near  to  the  heart  of  song  is  action — friendly,  helpful  action. 
Nineteenth-century  missions,  the  glory  of  the  church,  had  their  roots 
in  the  new  missionary  impulse  which,  like  so  many  other  movements, 
resulted  from  the  Great  Awakening.  Christian  Rauch  and  George  Post, 
David  Brainerd  and  John,  his  brother,  Jonathan  Edwards,  Eleazar 
Wheelock,  and  Sampson  Occum  are  but  a  few  names  in  the  list  of  mis- 
sionary heroes  whom  the  revival  sent  to  their  work.  Missions  to  the 
Indians  were  not  born  in  the  Great  Awakening,  but  they  were  born  again 
and  were  prosecuted  with  a  whole-hear tedness  which  they  had  not  known 
since  the  days  of  Ehot  and  the  Mayhews. 

Humanitarian  enterprises  of  many  kinds,  besides  missionary  en- 
deavor, owe  their  inception  to  the  new  social  consciousness  that  came 
with  the  Great  Awakening.  Sympathies  were  profoundly  stirred. 
The  people  were  awakened  to  a  new  interest  in  the  orphan,  the  negro, 
the  Indian,  and  the  unfortunate  whfether  at  their  doors  or  in  the  most 
distant  provinces.  The  first  word  against  slavery  was  spoken  by  men 
straight  from  the  home  of  Pietism  in  Germany.^  The  antislavery  move- 
ment in  New  England  was  originated  by  Hopkins,  one  of  the  great 
evangehcal  leaders.^  In  the  South  the  New  Side  Presbyterians  and  the 
Baptists  at  an  early  day  opposed  slavery .^  The  Methodist  discipline 
took  strong  ground  against  the  system.  Much  has  been  said  of  White- 
field's  owning  slaves  as  an  endowment  for  the  orphan  house,  but  not 

^  Miller,  Memoirs  of  the  Rev.  John  Rodgers,  D.D.,  pp.  149-53. 
^  Fisher,  The  Making  of  Pennsylvania,  p.  73. 

3  Allen,  Jonathan  Edwards,  p.  250. 

4  In  1784  the  Christian  Conference  of  Methodists  required  gradual  emancipation 
by  slaveholding  members.  In  1787  the  synod  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia  adopted 
a  declaration  for  prudent  measures  leading  to  the  final  abolition  of  slavery  in  America. 
In  1789  the  Baptist  General  Committee  of  the  state  of  Virginia  adopted  a  strong  resolu- 
tion against  slavery.  Tigert,  Constitutional  History,  p.  216;  Gillett,  History  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church,  I,  201,  202;  Semple,  op.  cit.,  p.  105. 


CONCLUSION  149 

enough  of  his  clarion  call,  heard  the  whole  length  of  the  colonies,  demand- 
ing for  the  slave  humane  treatment  and  Christian  training.  The  mission 
to  the  African  in  America  grew  out  of  the  Great  Awakening  and  meas- 
urably prepared  the  negro  for  the  enjoyment  of  liberty. 

The  return  to  the  emotional  experience  of  Paul,  the  doctrine  of 
Luther,  and  the  rigor  of  John  Cotton,  with  the  attendant  burst  of  song 
and  the  practical  demonstration  of  the  inherent  kindliness  of  the  move- 
ment, gradually  won  over  nearly  every  important  branch  of  the  Protes- 
tant church  in  America,  with  one  significant  exception.  The  Anglican 
church  in  the  colonies  spurned  the  aid  of  Whitefield  and  impotently  pro- 
nounced suspension  upon  him.  Wesley's  preachers  were  equally  dis- 
owned. This  church  became  the  last  refuge  of  the  conservatives.  The 
Great  Awakening  built  up  popular  denominations,  each  with  a  numerous 
following  of  earnest,  enthusiastic  members.  These  denominations  com- 
manded the  respect  of  the  whole  American  people,  even  of  the  irrehgious. 
But  the  ancient  national  church  of  the  Enghsh  people  fell  into  contempt. 
The  Presbyterians  and  the  Congregationalists  united  in  an  annual  con- 
vention to  combat  what  were  regarded  as  the  encroachments  of  the  Angli- 
can church,  and  particularly  to  prevent  the  appointment  of  an  American 
bishop.'  This  was  one  of  the  earliest  examples  of  an  intercolonial  com- 
bination to  bring  pressure  to  bear  upon  the  English  ministry.  The  Great 
Awakening  was  a  democratic  religious  movement,  but  the  AngUcan 
church  became  more  and  more  a  small  aristocratic  body,  centering  in 
an  official  class.  The  clergy  therefore  sought  the  advancement  of  their 
interests  by  intrigue  with  the  authorities  in  England.  They  were  sus- 
pected by  the  people  of  being  the  emissaries  of  a  foreign  government. 
They  shared  its  fortunes.  Thus  the  revival  united  with  other  influences 
to  subvert  the  Church  of  England  in  the  colonies. 

There  is  an  intimate  connection  between  the  American  Revolution 
and  the  intercolonial  religious  ferment  which  preceded  it.  The  policy 
of  the  conservatives  was  divisive  and  isolating,  but  the  evangelicals 
almost  always  advocated  union  and  friendly  co-operation.^    The  revival 

■  Miller,  op.  cil.,  pp.  186-92;   Records  of  tlie  Presbyterian  Church,  p.  373. 

^  When  Gilbert  Tennent  was  in  London  raising  money  for  Princeton  College,  and 
Provost  Smith  was  there  in  the  interest  of  the  Philadelphia  academy,  the  former 
expressed  the  hope  that  the  college  would  unite  the  Presbyterians  and  German  Re- 
formed, but  Smith,  an  Anglican,  replied  that  the  union  was  undesirable.  Tennent 
said,  "  Union  in  a  good  thing  is  always  desirable."  Webster,  op.  cil.,  p.  394.  Though 
the  Great  Awakening  brought  schism  to  most  denominations,  the  cause  was  not  the 
divisive  measures  of  the  evangelicals  but  the  hostility  of  the  conservatives,  who 
expelled  the  evangelicals,  or  forced  their  withdrawal,  or  themselves  withdrew.  Re- 
union, when  effected,  was  due  to  the  efforts  of  the  evangelicals. 


I50    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

spirit  was  always  the  foe  of  denominational  and  racial  prejudices.  The 
Great  Awakening  widened  the  horizon  of  the  people,  for  it  was  the  first 
intellectual  movement  in  which  all  the  colonies  participated.  Denomina- 
tions that  were  aggressively  evangelistic  ignored  provincial  boundaries 
and  built  up  constituencies  which  were  intercolonial  in  character.  The 
revival  led  to  a  very  considerable  movement  of  population.^  This  helped 
create  a  common  American  spirit.  The  Anglican  church  was  one  of  the 
ties  uniting  the  colonies  with  the  mother  country.  The  combination 
against  that  church  and  the  winning  of  a  large  part  of  its  nominal  mem- 
bership weakened  that  tie.  The  community  of  feeling  which  the  revival 
cultivated  in  the  several  Calvinistic  bodies,  the  actual  combination  of 
some  of  them  against  the  English  church,  and  the  fear  of  invasion  by  the 
English  government  of  their  religious  liberties  were  evidences  of  a  spirit- 
ual union  of  the  colonies  which  was  prophetic  of  a  national  union.  In 
just  the  same  way  a  century  later  the  disruption  of  the  great  popular 
denominations  upon  a  sectional  question  was  prophetic  of  the  Civil 
War.  The  Great  Awakening  prepared  the  way  for  the  Revolutionary 
War.  The  denominations,  Uke  the  Presbyterian  and  the  Baptist,-which 
were  built  up  by  the  revival  took  almost  unanimously  the  patriot  side. 
It  was  their  meeting-houses  that  were  burned  as  nests  of  rebellion  and 
their  pastors  that  were  hunted  as  instigators  of  treason.^ 

The  separation  of  church  and  state  was  an  application  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Great  Awakening  and  the  Revolution.  The  democratic 
principles  of  both  were  contrary  to  the  special  privileges  of  estabUshed 
churches.  The  growth  of  great  bodies  which  did  not  possess  these  privi- 
leges, like  the  Presbyterian  and  Baptist  denominations,  raised  up  powerful 
organizations  which  did  not  rest  until  every  vestige  of  an  establishment 
was  erased  from  the  statute  books.  This  was  the  course  in  Virginia'* 
and  other  southern  provinces.  It  was  so  in  New  York,  where  a  law, 
passed  by  dissenters  in  their  own  interest,  had  been  interpreted  as  the 
establishment  of  the  Church  of  England  in  parts  of  the  province.  The 
same  fate  befell  the  churches  of  the  standing  order  in  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut. 

While  the  quickening  of  the  religious  life  was  so  far  arrested  by  the 
social  and  political  disturbances  accompanying  the  Revolution  that  the 

'  Particularly  that  of  Separates  and  Baptists  from  Connecticut  and  other  eastern 
states  to  Vermont  and  New  York.  In  its  results  the  little  colony  of  Separate  Baptists 
which  moved  to  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  was  of  prime  importance. 

'Breed,  Presbyterians  and  the  Revolution;  Gillett,  op.  cit.,  I,  173-98. 

3Eckenrode,  Separation  of  Church  and  State  in  Virginia,  pp.  37,  129,  147. 


CONCLUSION  151 

Great  Awakening  may  be  said  then  to  have  come  to  an  end,  yet  as  a  force 
in  America  the  evangelical  revival  has  never  had  an  end.  It  burst  into 
flame  again  in  the  revivals  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  and 
was  dominant  in  American  religious  life  for  a  hundred  years  after  the 
Revolutionary  War.' 

A  final  word  as  to  the  Middle  Colonies,  with  which  this  study  has 
been  primarily  concerned.  The  Great  Awakening  found  them  in  a  state 
of  confusion,  in  a  tangle  of  warring  sects  and  hostile  nationalities.  Its 
partisans  slowly  gained  the  control  of  nearly  all  these  denominations 
and  brought  them  into  united  effort  for  common  religious  and  poHtical 
ends.  Its  leaders  were  in  hearty  accord  with  Edwards,  Bellamy,  and 
their  sympathizers  in  the  Connecticut  Valley  and  with  the  evangelical 
pastors  of  Boston.  They  also  conducted  religious  campaigns  in  the 
South.  The  more  democratic  promoters  of  revivalism,  likewise  from  the 
Middle  Colonies,  reached  out  to  the  South  to  make  converts  and  to  New 
England  to  effect  union  with  their  coreligionists.  Thus  the  Middle 
Colonies  were  the  center  of  a  movement  which  bound  together  the  whole 
line  of  colonies,  at  first  religiously  and  socially,  and  then  politically.^ 
All  the  features  of  this  intercolonial  and  world-wide  movement  enumer- 
ated in  this  chapter  are  therefore  illustrated  by  the  history  of  the  Great 
Awakening  in  the  Middle  Colonies. 

"  Hoskins,  "German  Influence  on  Religious  Life  and  Thought  in  America  in 
the  Colonial  Period,"  Princeton  Theological  Review,  V  (1907). 

^  Of  course  the  Great  Awakening  was  not  the  only  force  in  the  process  of  nation- 
making,  but  its  contribution  was  highly  significant,  especially  in  determining  what  is 
typically  American  in  the  sphere  of  religion. 


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Vedder,  H.  C.  A  History  of  the  Baptists  in  the  Middle  States.  Philadelphia, 
1898. 

Watson,  J.  F.     Annals  of  Philadelphia.     Philadelphia,  1891. 

Webster,  R.    A  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.'    Philadelphia,  1857. 

Wheelock,  Eleazar.    A  plain  and  faithf id  Narrative.     Boston,  1763. 

.     A  Continuation.     Boston,  1765. 

Whitefield,  George.  Brief  Account  of  the  First  Part  of  his  Life.  Philadelphia, 
1740. 

.    A  Further  Account.    London,  1747. 

.    A  Journal  (No.  i).    London,  1743 

.    A  Continuation  (No.  2).    London,  1739. 

.    A  Continuation  (No.  3).    London,  1739. 


158    THE  GREAT  AWAKENING  IN  THE  MIDDLE  COLONIES 

Whitefield,  George.    A  Continuation  (No.  4).    London,  1739. 
A  Continuation  (No.  5).    London,  1740. 
A  Continuation  (No.  6).    London,  1741. 
A  Continuation  (No.  7).    London,  1744. 
MS  Journal  for  1744. 

A  Letter  .  ...  In  Answer  to  ...  .  Querists.    New  York,  1740. 
Some  Remarks  on  a  Pamphlet.    Philadelphia,  1749. 
A  Letter  to  his  Excellency  Governor  Wright.    London,  1768. 


Note. — The  dates  of  publications  given  are  of  the  editions  used  in  the  preparation 
of  this  study.  Many  books  and  manuscripts  have  been  consulted  in  addition  to  those 
given  in  the  preceding  list. 


IP 

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